


Combustion or Burning

by peppermiintsplease



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abusive John Winchester, Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arson, Biology, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Bottom Dean Winchester, Canonical Character Death, Castiel's Family Being Assholes (Supernatural), Dean Winchester Has Issues, Dean Winchester Has Self-Esteem Issues, Dean Winchester Has Self-Worth Issues, Dean/Cas Big Bang 2019 (Supernatural), F/M, Fluff and Smut, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Kidnapping, M/M, Minor Character Death, Pansexual Castiel (Supernatural), Sex Worker Dean Winchester, Smart Dean Winchester, Smut, Suicidal Thoughts, Top Castiel/Bottom Dean Winchester, Torture, Underage Prostitution, Underage Sex, camper vans, conversion therapy, dcbb19
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2020-12-28 10:22:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 15
Words: 63,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21135158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peppermiintsplease/pseuds/peppermiintsplease
Summary: Dean is being chased by fires. Everywhere they live, there's a fire, and it's always connected to him. Dean does what he has to provide for his family, and John keeps them on the move. But when Sam goes away to Stanford, Dean's left alone to run from the fires in the van he's outfitted to live in. It's only when he stops running and goes to college in San Francisco that he finds what he needs. And what he needs is the support of a dorky TA named Castiel, who gives him a reason to stay put. What happens when the fire catches up?





	1. fire.

**Author's Note:**

> My first long piece of fiction!
> 
> Thank you so much to my wonderful artist, [Coplins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coplins/pseuds/coplins)! Seriously, look at her art. She's amazing.
> 
> Also thanks for the help editing to my beta, Celina, who kept an eye on my verb tenses and my redundant vocabulary!

  
_Oh, imagine yourself in a building_  
_Up in flames being told to stand still_  
_The window's wide open_  
_This leap is on faith_  
_You don't know who will catch you_  
_Maybe somebody will_

“Sammy! Come on!”

“I know!”

“I know you know, but we’re s’posed to be early because it’s your first day!”

“I know!”

“Let’s go!” Dean glances at the clock again, knowing if they don’t leave within the next few minutes they will be on time for the first bell, which is _late_.

Sam comes running down the stairs, practically crashing into the wall at the bottom. He barely makes the turn, and then he’s shoving his shoes on his feet. He can’t seem to coordinate his five-year-old fingers into tying his shoes, so Dean kneels down, knocks Sammy’s hands aside, and ties them himself.

“You excited for your first day, Sammy?”

“Yeah! I’m gonna learn so much! I’m gonna be so smart like you, D!”

Dean chuckles and ruffles his brother’s mop of hair. The kid needs a haircut pretty soon or else he’s not going to be able to see past his bangs. “Yeah, you’ll be teaching me in no time, kiddo. Got your backpack?”

Sam beams at him and turns to show off his new (well, new to him) backpack that Dean had picked up at the Goodwill in the shopping center.

“Awesome, let’s head.”

“Dean, where’s Dad?” Sam looks around, expecting him to be there. “I thought he was going to drop me off this morning and meet my teacher? He said he would.”

“Dad had a job come up this morning that he took, Sammy. Look, he gave me all the stuff to give to your teacher,” he shows his brother the envelope with all the papers that his dad gave him, “he’ll meet her another day, dude. But we really have to get going.”

Sam pouts and wrinkles his little forehead. Dean locks the door on their way out, and the pair walk to school together. The walk isn’t far, only about a half a mile. Sam’s talking so much that the walk goes by quickly.

“--do you think we’re going to learn about dinosaurs? Remember that book we read last week? I wonder if Mrs. Jones knows the difference between a herbivore and a carnimore, do you think I should tell her about that--”

The week before, Dean and Sam had gone to the library and picked up a book about dinosaurs, because they were Sam’s current obsession. _The Ultimate Dino-pedia_ was a little difficult for Sam to read at first, but the kid’s a genius. He reads almost as well as Dean does these days, even if he has to stop all the time to ask Dean what the words mean.

“It’s carni_vore_, Sam. And yeah, I think she’d love to hear about the dinosaur book we read. Maybe you could bring it in and read it to her.” She’d see how smart his baby brother is, Dean thinks she’d be really impressed.

He drops Sam off at his classroom, handing the papers in the envelope to his teacher, who smiles kindly at him. She asks where his mom and dad are, and Dean always hates this part.

“My mom died.” Mrs. Jones’ lips go tight, and she makes a noise in her throat that he interprets as pitying. He hates that and pushes forward. “My dad had to go to work this morning, but he signed all the stuff for Sammy. He said his number’s in there if you want to call him,” he smiles his most charming and innocent smile, the one he uses when he needs to get some noodles or bread when they’re out of money. It makes the store clerks less wary of him.

Sammy’s teacher accepts his explanation, and Dean heads down the hallway to his own classroom. It’s in a different area of the building, for the _big kids_, and Dean was psyched to finally get to play on the big kids' playground. It had one of those super tall slides; he saw it from the window of the Impala when dad took them to get registered. The little kids’ playground only had a short slide. Suckers.

All day at school, Dean’s mind wanders over to Sammy’s kindergarten classroom. Was Sammy getting picked on? Was his teacher nice to him? Did he eat his lunch? This school had a free lunch program, so they didn’t have to worry about packing lunches, but Sam could be a picky little shit when he wanted. When the bell rang for common recess, Dean shoots out of his seat and runs out to the playground. He looks over at the little kids’ side, searching for a short kid with a mop of brown hair. When he spots him, relief floods his system. Sam is climbing on the monkey bars with other kids, and he’s laughing. 

“Dean?”

He jumps when a hand touches his shoulder. It’s his teacher, Mrs. Freeman. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I was just looking for my kid brother. It’s his first day,” he points over at the other playground and shrugs his shoulders.

“Ah. That’s nice that you look out for your brother.”

“Of course. It’s my job!” Dean puffs up his chest because he’s really good at his job.

“Well, you’re doing great. That explains why you were a little distracted today, huh?” When Dean hears that he turns to face her, ears turning pink. “Your teachers from your old school indicated that you were a smart, focused, hard worker.”

“Oh. Um. I guess,” he likes hearing that, but it does make him feel a little uncomfortable. Sammy’s the smart one, not Dean. Dean’s good at running, and he’s good at throwing a ball. He’s okay at school, but Sammy’s gonna be so much better. “Sammy can already read.”

“Is that so? What’s his favorite book? Has he read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom?” 

“Well, yeah, but that one’s for babies. Sam likes to read Magic Tree House.”

“Oh, you read to Sam?”

“No. I mean, yeah, but,” Didn’t Dean just tell her? “Sam reads to me! We take turns. Sometimes he doesn’t know what a word is, so he has me read it to him. He finished the one we were reading last night without me, though, which is fine, because it’s a little kid book, but I did wanna know what happened to Jack at the end, so that kinda sucks,” Dean had been watching a scary movie, and he sent Sam to bed so it didn’t scare him. 

“Wow, Dean. That’s… exceptional. Who taught him how to read?” She seems impressed, which she should be. Sammy’s super smart.

Dean shrugs, “I did, I guess. He used to sit with me while I did my homework, and I’d read stuff out loud to him.”

“Do you like to read, Dean?”

“It’s okay. I like funny books better than sad books though. The one I’m reading right now is sad.”

“What are you reading right now?”

“_The Giver_. No one can see color except this old guy and this kid, and they all take medicine that makes them boring, except for the old guy and the kid. And there’s this weird thing where they all have to wear the same clothes and eat the same food. That’s sad. I’d be mad if I couldn’t eat cheeseburgers,” he squirms a bit, scuffs his shoes in the dirt that’s peeking through the scruffy grass this close to the little fence. This is a long time to talk to a grown-up, but he doesn’t want to be rude. Dad says you should always be polite to teachers. “Can I go play now?”

“Yeah,” Mrs. Freeman looks a little shocked, “you can go play. It was good to hear about your reading, Dean. I’d love to know what you think about the end.”

“Mrs. F, you okay?”

“Oh, I’m fine, dear,” she smiles at him, but still looks weird. “Go on. Some of the boys and girls from your class are playing soccer over there,” she points over to the field, where he sees Julia kick the ball into the goal.

“Cool!” Dean runs off.

________________________

“Dean?” Mrs. Freeman calls as the bell rings. “Can I talk to you for a moment?”

Dean feels his heart speed up a little. Is he already in trouble? Dad’s gonna be so mad at him. Is this because he pushed Steve? He was being mean to Martin, and Steve didn’t even get hurt. He walks up to the desk cautiously.

“Is it okay if I walk down to the kindergarten with you? I’d like to meet your brother.”

“Yeah!” Of course she wants to meet Sammy, he’s awesome. Dean’s got the best little brother on the planet.

“Great! Is your father coming to pick you up?”

Oh. “Uh, no. Dad’s at work. He’ll meet us at home, though,” Mrs. Freeman sort of frowns at that, but doesn’t say anything.

They walk down the hall, which has mostly cleared, to find Sam still in his classroom, talking to his teacher.

“--and they’re from 65 _million years ago!_ I don’t really know how much that is, but Dean says it’s a super long time ago. My book says an as’troid hit the earth, which is where we live now and killed all the dinosaurs. I hope one doesn’t hit us now. I’m glad T-Rex’s aren’t still around, even though they’re super cool, because--Dean!” Sam’s wide eyes spot Dean and Sam almost trips over his own two feet as he runs over to talk to him, “I was telling Mrs. Jones about my book, and she says I can bring it in tomorrow!”

“That’s great, Sammy,” Dean smiles.

“Hi, Sam. I’m Dean’s teacher. My name is Mrs. Freeman. Dean told me a little bit about you today, and I wanted to come to meet you. He said you like to read?”

“Yeah! Dean and me are reading a ‘cyclopedia about dinosaurs!” Sam’s almost shouting in his enthusiasm. Dean doesn’t bother to hold back his smile, the kid’s enthusiasm is cute.

“Wow, that’s great, Sam! What did you do in school today?” She glances at Mrs. Jones, who has a smiley face. Dean likes that because it means she was probably nice to Sam. Of course, smiles don’t always mean _nice_, but the way Sam was talking to her definitely means she’s not _mean_, at least. Mean people don’t listen to five-year-olds tell them stuff they probably already know about dinosaurs.

“We did the days of the week and the ABCs--those were really easy, everyone already knew them. But I was the only one who knew all of the letter sounds! I told Mrs. Jones that it was really easy, but she said not everyone knows how to read yet. I’m not very good at writing yet--” that’s true, Dean thought, they didn’t practice that very much. But writing is kind of boring, so-- “--but I know how to spell my whole name. Can you believe that some kids don’t? I helped some of them. Emily who sits next to me wrote her E backward!” He looks at the teachers with wide eyes.

Mrs. Jones cuts in, “you were very kind when you corrected her, Sam,” and Dean grins. Sam is helpful when he wants to be.

“Well, that sounds very exciting, Sam. It was so nice to meet you. Have a safe walk home.”

“Thank you! It was nice to meet you too! Bye, Mrs. Jones! Bye, Mrs. Freeman!” He waves and Dean says goodbye. They walk out of the door and across the street, not knowing that the teachers’ eyes are following them.

________________________

“When is Dad coming home?” Sammy asks while they eat dinner. Dean had heated up a can of Spaghetti-o’s, and Sammy was still a pretty messy eater so Dean passes him another napkin.

“He said tomorrow,” answers Dean, “but I don’t know when.”

Later, the phone in the room rings. Sammy is across the room to pick up the phone by the second ring, but Dean makes him wait.

“Wait, dude. If it’s him, he calls again, remember?” They’re supposed to let it ring through, and then when a second call comes through, they can answer it. 

The phone rings again, and Dean lunges for it. Sam stomps his foot, mad that Dean got to it first.

“Dad?”

“Dean. Everything good?”

“Yes, sir. Sammy and I were just eating dinner.”

“How was school? Did you give everything to Sammy’s teacher?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. You stay out of trouble?”

“Yessir. My teacher’s real nice.”

“Hm. Hopefully she can keep you in line.”

Dean blows out a breath. “Yessir,” A long pause, then Dean asks, “when are you coming home?”

“Looks like it’s gonna be Friday.”

“But that’s two days away!”

“You’re in charge until I get back,” his dad’s voice brokers no argument, and he makes no apologies for being gone longer than he thought he would._ Still,_ Dean thinks, _he’s doing the best he can, right?_ “Make sure you boys get up for school.”

Dean always makes sure they’re up on time. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. Give your brother the phone.”

Dean passes the phone to Sammy, “Dad wants to talk to you.”

“Dad? Yes, sir. Yes. Uh-huh. She’s nice. I will. I’ll tell him, Dad,” _tell me what? _Dean wonders. _I was just on the phone with him, why didn’t he tell me then?_ “Okay, Dad. Love you too, bye,” Sammy replaces the phone on the cradle, and tells Dean, “Dad wants me to tell you to make sure I eat enough,” Sammy’s big eyes look up at Dean.

“Duh, of course I will,” Dean’s _always_ made sure Sammy had enough, no matter what it cost him. He wishes he hadn’t eaten half of the Spaghetti-o’s though. Those could’ve been dinner tomorrow for Sam. He’s pretty sure they have a can of soup somewhere, and he knows they have bread and peanut butter. It’ll have to work.

________________________

On Friday, the two boys come home from school to see the Impala in the driveway. Dad’s waiting for them at the little kitchen table. 

“I got a call from school today, boys. They want me to come in for a meeting on Monday morning. Anything you want to tell me?”

The boys look at each other. Sammy shrugs, and Dean answers, “I don’t know, Dad. Nothing happened.”

His dad looks skeptical, but responds simply, “we’ll see what they say on Monday, then.”

Dean swallows and nods. He has a stone in his stomach that doesn’t go away. He doesn’t eat much at dinner. Sammy talks to Dad, telling him about the school, but Dean stays largely silent. What if it was something he did? Is he failing already? Maybe his teacher figured out that he’s too dumb for third grade, and he has to go back and be in kindergarten like Sammy. 

All weekend, Dean replays in his mind what had happened at school for the last three days. He had been put on yellow instead of green that one day because Tyler stole his eraser and Dean was trying to get it back. They ended up arguing, and Mrs. Freeman made both of them move their clips on the chart. But no matter how hard Dean thinks, he doesn’t think there was anything else that happened to get him in trouble. Unless they’re meeting with Dad to kick Dean out because he’s already failing? That could be true. They hadn’t gotten their pre-test back yet for math, but Dean’s sure he didn’t get any of them right. And he got some of those words wrong on that spelling list Mrs. Freeman gave them.

He doesn’t sleep much on Sunday night, either. Those same thoughts keep running through his head. By Monday morning, he’s 100% sure he’s about to be kicked out of school. Dad’s impatient, trying to get them out of the house early so that he can meet with whoever he’s meeting. Dean’s silent, insides churning over the anticipation of the unknown.

When they get there, both Sammy’s and Dean’s teachers are there, and so is the principal, and two other ladies that Dean’s not met yet, but he’s seen in the hallways. They send him and Sammy into the gym to sit with the other kids that get to school super early and wait.

Dean can’t help but jiggle his knee the whole time they’re waiting. He’s about to be expelled, he knows it. And then Dad will get angry, and when Dad’s angry-- No. He can’t think about that, because he might cry, and then he’ll get teased. If he’s getting kicked out, he doesn’t want anyone to see him cry.

A while later, Ms. Freeman comes out to get them and bring them back in the meeting, and Dean is sure she’s about to tell him he’s been expelled. The stone in his stomach is still there, and now it’s hot and rolling around with a bunch of other stones.

They head into the main office conference room, and find… smiling adults, plus Dad. He doesn’t look angry, he looks _thoughtful_, which settles some of Dean’s nerves, but--

“What’s goin’ on?” Sammy asks first, which is good because Dean doesn’t think his voice works right now.

“Well, Sammy, we’ve been talking. About you and your brother.”

“Okay?”

“Your dad has agreed to let us do a couple of things to find out if you boys are in the right classes,” and Dean feels like his worst fears have been confirmed. He’s not smart enough for third grade, and they probably figured that out by day two.

Dean can feel his face go white, and he thinks he might throw up. “Did I fail the pre-test? I promise I can do better, I’ll try real hard,”

Mrs. Freeman interrupts his fretting. “No, Dean. We think you boys should be in _higher_ grades, or at least in the gifted and talented programs,” the principal tells him, smiling brightly.

“I know Sam’s ahead for his age, but do you really think Dean is?” His dad asks, blunt as ever. Dean looks down at the table, cheeks pink.

Mrs. Freeman answers him quickly. “Dean is very bright for his age as well, Mr. Winchester. He answered every single question on the math pre-test correctly, and the majority of those concepts are things that aren’t in the third-grade curriculum until the spring. He’s got the highest reading score in my classroom, according to his reading group placement test. And it’s not just that Dean reads quickly and fluently--which he absolutely does. He’s _comprehending_ information that he reads at a higher level than most third graders,” her attention turns to Dean, “can you tell Ms. Scott and everyone else what book you told me you were reading?”

Dean lowers his eyebrows. Why does it matter? “_The Giver._”

“Mr. Winchester, that book is part of a sixth-grade curriculum in our district. Sammy here was telling me that he reads Magic Treehouse books? Those are part of the second-grade curriculum,”

His dad grunts in acknowledgment, “so what are you proposing, exactly?”

“I’m proposing that we check that Sam already has all the skills that we are going to teach him in kindergarten. I want to give him a placement test that I’m positive will tell us that he belongs in first grade. I want to give Dean a placement test for reading and put him in advanced reading with older students. I might want to put him in advanced math. But I can’t do it without your permission.”

“You really think Sammy can skip a grade?”

“I really do. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t suggest this. Socialization is typically very important for first grade, as is learning a routine and learning how school works. Learning how to do homework is another skill most of our kindergartners don’t have yet. But Sam is… mature. And the reason I don’t want to advance Dean a grade is that at this point in his school career he would miss pieces of the rest of the curriculum. I don’t want to leave gaps in his knowledge.”

“But Sammy can skip a grade.”

“Pending the results of an evaluation, yes.”

Dean is only sort of following the conversation. He’s getting that Sammy is smart (which of course, he already knew) but it also sounds like they’re saying _he’s_ smart, which can’t be right. 

“--we, of course, want to challenge our students. There’s a chance that if Dean isn’t challenged academically, he could start to act out, simply because he’s bored--”

“I’m not bored,” Dean interrupts. The adults all look at him, and he shrinks back in his seat. “I won’t be bad, promise.”

“Dean, we know you won’t be _bad_, but we want to make sure you’re learning things that you find interesting.”

“Oh,” Dean looks back down at the table, and then up at his dad, who is watching him with his thinking face. He nods once.

“Alright, let’s do it.”

________________________

_The first time the fire found him was a blaze when he was four years old. Little Sammy wasn’t even 6 months, and the fire took away the only home they had ever known, along with their mother. _

_They had played at the park for hours earlier in the day. It was sunny and warm. A sweet breeze kept the air cool enough, but Dean’s nose got all pink from sunburn anyway. Afterward, his mom put some green goop on it, and he giggled while she rubbed his nose and called him her little man. They baked a pie for after dinner. Dad came home and they played in the yard while the sun went down. Everything was perfect._

_Right up until Dean woke up, coughing smoke._

_“Mom?” He called, knowing that she would come. She always comes when he calls, no matter what. Sometimes it takes a minute because she’ll be busy, but she always answers him._

_Not this time._

_What he does hear is a loud crashing sound that seems to be coming from in the hallway. Dean is terrified, but gets out of bed and looks._

_He knows what fire is. He knows about stop, drop, and roll. He knows that smoke goes up, and he’s supposed to crawl._

_He didn’t know how hot it was. He didn’t know how loud it would be. He didn’t know about the sparks that flew, trying to catch him and light him too. _

_He screams for his mom and dad, and for a minute, no one answers, and Dean doesn’t know what to do. He wants to go hide in his bed, but he feels stuck standing in his doorway. He squeezes his eyes shut. Fire is a lot scarier than the firemen who came to school on Fire Safety Day told him. _

_“Dean!” He hears his name called, and he sees his dad come running out of a room, holding a bundle in his arms._

_Sammy._

_“Take your brother outside as fast as you can! Now, Dean, go!” He hears a scream coming from inside Sammy’s room, his _mom is screaming_, but his dad pushes him and says, “I’ll get your mom, go!” And Dean runs down the stairs and out onto the lawn. _

_A moment that lasts forever, and then his dad is running down the porch steps with tears streaming down his face._

_“Where’s Mom?” Dean whispers. The shock of the way he woke up is beginning to wear off, and the frightening picture that their burning house makes, the heat that it gives off, it’s settling in. _

_His dad just hugs him closer, and a second later he hears the sound of shattering glass and sees a giant fireball bursting through a window. His dad is shaking now, falling to his knees with his arms around his children, his breath coming out in harsh sobs. _

_“Dad? Where’s Mom? Dad!” And then Dean understands. His mom isn’t coming out. She’s still in there. He tries to tug away from his dad. If she heard him calling for her, she’d come out! She never ignores Dean! “Dad!”_

_“She’s gone, son,” his voice sounds funny, and Dean looks at his dad’s face to see that he’s crying very very hard. By the time the sirens wail and the big trucks are there, Dean has stopped crying._

_This isn’t happening. This is a bad dream. He’s going to wake up tomorrow to a bowl of Lucky Charms, and his mom is going to set up the sprinkler so he can run in it. She promised. _

_Dean knows that there is someone asking him questions, but all he can do is tremble, nod and shake his head. His dad is over there, talking to the police, Sammy being looked at by another person in a blue uniform right next to Dean. They put a little mask over his face, and they give Dean one, too. _

_“It’s just oxygen, sweetie. We want to make sure you didn’t breathe in any of that smoke, and this will help make your lungs feel better. Does it hurt anywhere else?”_

_Dean has a bandage on his upper arm; apparently, he scraped it against something while he was running out of the house. He doesn’t know what it was. He shakes his head at the man asking him questions and holds onto little Sammy’s hand._

_Wake up, he tells himself. Wake. Up._

_He doesn’t._

________________________

Sam skips up to first grade. Dean ends up in advanced reading and advanced math, which basically means he’s in classrooms with much bigger kids for two or three hours a day, although sometimes the resource room teacher takes him by himself. It’s weird, and the other kids don’t really talk to him, but he likes the books that they’re reading (he likes _Hatchet _and _The Phantom Tollbooth_, but doesn’t like _Old Yeller_), and he likes solving the math problems.

Sam isn’t the smallest kid in his class, which is a relief. He says his class is a lot harder than the last one was, but he loves that.

The Winchester boys settle into a routine. Dad’s gone more often than not, but the boys do okay. Dean steals bread and peanut butter and two apples from the store on the corner, but he doesn’t get caught. Dad’s home for Thanksgiving.

The day after Thanksgiving, Dean wakes up with smoke in his nose and fear in his heart.

Their house burns down. They’re two states over checking into a motel by dinner time the next day, and Dad won’t look at Dean.

________________________

When the boys start at their new school, there’s more paperwork and discussions of what classrooms Dean and Sam should join. Sam joins back in with a first-grade class (and he _is_ the smallest in this room, so Dean vows to watch out for bullies), And Dean gets placed in a classroom that’s half third graders and half fourth graders. There’s a little group of the fourth graders that take the fifth-grade reading, and they’re in the middle of reading _Shiloh_, which was one of Dean’s favorites at his last school. The kids in his class are kind of mean to him, but there’s a kid wearing thick glasses that shares his twinkies with him at lunch, so it’s not all bad.

Dad leaves them alone again by the second week of December, and he doesn’t come back until after Christmas.

Which is fine. Dad’s working hard.


	2. flame.

  
_When holding your breath is safer than breathing_   
_When letting go is braver than keeping_   
_When innocent words turn to lies_   
_And you can't hide by closing your eyes_

By the time Dean is 13, he’s been in four fires. He’s witnessed three. His school caught on fire and part of the roof collapsed. The diner they went to every day for a week went up in flames. Two of the apartments that they lived in had what the fire department called “small fires”, but still made their building uninhabitable.

Dad keeps Dean under house arrest the next time they move, and for two weeks, Dean isn’t allowed to go anywhere except school and home, and Dad is around the entire time. Dean knows that Dad thinks he’s the one setting the fires, and he can’t convince him otherwise.

“Dad, why would I do that?”

“Because you’re a dumbass teenager who thinks fire is cool? I don’t know, Dean, you tell me. Why is there a fire in 70% of the towns we live in?”

“I don’t _know._”

“I’m watching you, boy,” he makes Dean kneel on the ground with his nose touching the wall for close to four hours because Dad says he’s undisciplined and should know better than to talk back. His knees are bruised the next day.

Dean finds the suspicion extremely frustrating but consents to house arrest anyway. He sulks the whole time. His dad only lets up three very tense days later, when he learns that the pizza place he had taken the boys to has had a fire. Electrical failure. Dean had been with him the whole time, and there was just no way that it could’ve been him. Still. There’s definitely a connection between Dean and the fires.

________________________

They move again. John didn’t even have a chance to enroll his boys into school, but right now, that’s not his priority. He can’t figure out what is happening, but he knows it’s connected to Dean somehow. He’s sure of it.

John begins to search for places to stay that don’t require background checks. He only pays in cash. His paranoia pays off, somewhat. They can stay longer in one place (though never longer than a year). It’s when he uses a credit card, an insurance card, anything that can be tracked that is all goes to hell. When he leaves the boys, that’s when they’re safest. He can use his credit cards in other states and towns, it makes it harder to track where the boys are. He drills it into Dean: _take care of your brother. It’s your job, Dean. If something happens, you take care of Sammy first, he’s your priority. These fires follow you around, we wouldn’t even be here if you didn’t bring these fucking fires into our lives! Your mother would still be alive. You should’ve died in that fire, boy, it was there for you anyway._

If something happens to Sammy, John will never forgive himself. Mary died making sure that Sammy was safe, she begged him, trapped under that fallen beam, to make sure that Sammy was taken care of. _Get Sammy out of here, John! Make sure they’re safe, John. Keep them safe, promise me you’ll keep them safe!_ John intended to keep that promise, and charged Dean with taking care of himself and Sammy as soon as he was old enough.

Tonight, John had been at the bar near their current pay-by-the-week rental, thinking about their situation. He reflects on his boys. Sammy, a year ahead in school of where he should be, and still getting advanced lessons in some subjects. That boy was going places. Dean was in advanced courses too, but John wasn’t convinced. When that school up in New York convinced him that Sam should skip a grade, he agreed, but he was skeptical of their assessment of Dean. That boy couldn’t get a lesson into that brain of his if it killed him. How long had John been trying to beat those lessons into him, and Dean keeps fucking up? Dean is lazy. He’s selfish. John sees how his son sometimes looks at other boys, too. No son of his looks at other men that way. He’s not having a goddamn faggot in his house. He’ll beat that shit out of him.

Dean had apparently been planning to go to a local arcade, but John put an end to that quickly. Dean was to stay home, look out for Sammy. He should be doing that without John telling him. Hasn’t he been telling his oldest his _entire life _to watch out for his little brother? He can’t get it through Dean’s thick skull that Sammy comes first. _Dean can be so fucking selfish_, John thinks, as he weaves his way home. No matter how long John spends out on the road, driving that fucking rig to provide for his family, Dean thinks he’s above it, doesn’t he? Does he think he should be allowed to go out and abandon his brother?

“Dad?” Dean’s voice comes from the couch in the front room. John doesn’t know why he’s still awake, and it pisses him off. He storms into the room to find Dean standing up from the couch.

“Why the fuck are you up? Think you’re a big man, huh? You can stay up all night, even if it makes you too tired to watch out for your brother tomorrow? What if you fall asleep and Sammy needs you, did you think of that?”

John grabs as his son, who hisses in pain at his grip.

“Did that hurt, princess?” he mocks, and shoves Dean towards the bedrooms, “go check on Sammy and get to bed. You’re running laps in the morning. Don’t think I don’t know that you want to go check out some boys at the _arcade_. Don’t know what I did to deserve a fairy as a son,” he grumbles.

“Yes, sir,” Dean responds quietly. John sees his throat move as he swallows. He looks ashamed. Good.

“I got a job that’s going to take about a week, Dean. I’m leaving money for groceries, and the rent is paid. School starts on Monday. I gotta leave for the depot tomorrow at lunchtime. I’ll call and check in, make sure you’re taking care of things.”

Dean nods his assent and slips into the dark bedroom that he and his brother are sharing.

Goddammit. That kid better not screw this shit up again. John will give him a good talking to in the morning, make sure Dean knows he has to do whatever it takes to keep his brother safe from those fires that follow Dean around. He’ll make sure Dean understands, even if he has to beat it into his stupid ass.

________________________

As Dean gets older, Dad leaves for longer and longer trucking jobs. He says he makes more if he takes the longer hauls, but Dean never sees a dime of it. Dad’s been gone for 19 days, and Dean’s down to 37 cents.

“Dean? Do we have any bread left?” At 12 years old, Sam is beginning to shoot up. He’s hungry all the time. He’s outgrowing clothes faster than Dean can buy them, and he’s had to spend their last $25 on new boots for the kid.

Dean’s own boots pinch his toes a little, but that’s okay.

“Uh, yeah, Sammy, but we’re almost out. I’m going to head out to the store tonight, okay? I’ll pick up some more bread, and some other stuff.” Dean starts to make a sandwich for Sam, ignoring the rumbling in his own stomach. It’s been a day or so since his last full meal, but he’ll eat tonight if he can scrounge up enough money.

“I’m sick of peanut butter. And it’s Sam, Dean.” He’s got the same fond but bitchy look on his face that he gets whenever his brother calls him Sammy, and Dean sort of loves it.

“Yeah, whatever, twerp.” Sam rolls his eyes and he grabs his sandwich, and Dean grins.

Dean spends the day reading while Sam does his homework and complains that he’s hungry. Dean lets him eat the last package of ramen.

At 11:00 PM, Dean makes Sam go to bed.

“Where are you going?”

“Out. Gonna play some pool.”

“I hate when you do that. You always get into fights.”

“What can I say, Sammy? Those guys don’t like it when a sixteen-year-old kicks their asses at pool.”

Sam rolls his eyes at Dean for what has to be the tenth time that day.

“You keep doing that, your eyes are going to roll right out of your head.”

“Don’t be stupid, Dean.”

“Can’t help it, I was born this way.”

Sam frowns at his brother. “You’re not stupid.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean waves him off, “get to bed, twerp. Don’t open the door for anyone, don’t answer the phone. You know the drill. Call me if there’s an emergency. Don’t tell Dad. You got it?”

“I got it.”

“Good. See you later, dude!”

Sam goes to his bedroom, and Dean ducks into his to change.

The Johns at the truck stop pay a lot more when Dean looks the part of an eager twink.

________________________

“Oh, yeah, bitch. Take it. Look at me while you choke on my big fat dick!”

Dean’s behind the truck stop bathroom, hidden between two rigs. He’s on his knees, letting this guy (whose dick is nothing special, to be honest) ram his cock in and out of his mouth. The guy coughed up forty bucks for a blow job, said he’d give him another twenty if he swallows at the end.

“You’re gonna take my big load, aren’t you? Your lips are made for sucking cock, god _damn_. I bet you’ve got a tight ass, too, pretty boy like you,” he thrusts a few more times, and Dean can tell he’s close. He runs his tongue under the head of the guy’s dick, and that’s all she wrote. The guy comes in Dean's mouth, watching carefully as Dean swallows every drop. He zips up and starts to walk away.

“Hey, asshole! You forgot that extra twenty you owe me!”

“Should’ve gotten paid upfront, fag.” He must see Dean’s intention to fight back, so he throws a sucker punch into Dean’s left cheek, and a second one to his stomach. “Don’t even try, whore. If you’re a good boy, I might even send a couple more guys your way, how about that?”

Dean sinks slowly to the ground, trying to breathe through getting the wind knocked out of him while glaring at the asshole who gave him the shaft. Literally and figuratively.

“That’s what I thought. You little whores are so thirsty for cock, even getting short-changed doesn’t stop you, huh?”

_The only thing stopping me right now is that I can’t breathe, you goddamn asshole_, Dean thinks to himself, unable to get the words to come out of his mouth. Should’ve lifted the bastard’s wallet when he had the chance. The guy walks away, and whistles while he does it. Dean takes a few minutes to try to get his breath back.

“Oh, fuck. Kid, are you alright? What happened to you?” Some other guy comes walking around the corner of the building and stops in his tracks when he sees Dean sitting against the wall.

“I’m fine,” Dean groans as he stands up. The new guy tries to give him a hand. “Don’t fucking touch me, I said I’m fine,” Dean snaps at him. This dude puts his hands up, and his eyes follow Dean’s hand tucking away the forty fucking dollars that fat fuck gave him. Dean can see him putting it together.

“Shit. Kid, listen, let me call someone for you. You don’t need to be out here.”

“Yeah, I do. Thanks but no thanks, buddy. I gotta head.”

Dean walks away quickly, ignoring the man’s protest that Dean stays and lets him look at Dean’s cheek. Fucking do-gooders can’t leave well enough alone. He heads to the nearest 24-hour convenience store and does some math. Dean can stock them up for almost the whole week with $40, he’s done it before. It’s inconvenient that their current schools don’t provide free breakfast or lunch, and it makes it harder to stretch the money. But he can do it.

When he walks in the door, however, the guy at the register takes one look at him and shakes his head. With a heavy accent, the man condemns Dean, “no. You look trouble. Go.”

“Oh, come on!” Dean complains. “I have money!”

“No, you have trouble. You steal last time!”

“I didn’t!” He totally did.

“You want to steal, I call police.”

“Dude, you’re the only store open for miles. I need to get some food _tonight_ for my little brother, _please._” He notices the cashier giving him a look up and down, and Dean catches on. He switches to a slightly more flirty tone, “I can make it worth your while.”

The cashier narrows his eyes. “How much for fuck?”

“Two hundred. But I’ll make it one hundred if you let me shop.”

“Done. Not here, in back,” he puts up the “back in 15 minutes” sign, and Dean follows him to the back room, where presumably there are no cameras.

When they enter the room, the guy, whose name tag says “Armand” tells him to turn around. He gets a palmful of Dean’s ass while tugging his pants down below it, and Dean hears him unbuckling his belt. He hears a condom wrapper (thank god for small miracles), and a moment later, hands are on him, and a dick is sliding into his under-prepared asshole. Dean had stretched himself a little bit before leaving for the night, but that had been hours ago, and most of the lube has long since dried up. Whatever condom Armand wrapped his dick in is lubed, but it’s not enough that Dean doesn’t feel some pain. He grits his teeth, and bears down, trying to make it easier on himself.

Armand is a quick fuck, Dean’s relieved to find out. He’s barely inside Dean for five minutes before he pulls out, and then Dean feels him come across his bare ass.

“Aw, man, really?” 

Armand hands him a wad of bills that Dean counts right there and then, and then says, “now you shop. Be fast and get out.”

Dean gives a stiff nod and heads out to do his shopping. He spends $48.67 on boxed macaroni and cheese, bread, peanut butter, jelly, bags of chips, and boxes of plain pasta. He even grabs a gallon of milk. He’s got enough. He hopes he’s got enough because he doesn’t want to have to do this again while they’re in this town. 

When he gets out of the store, he checks his phone. He’s got a missed call from Sam, and a text that reads “dad’s home.”

_Fuck._

________________________

Dean’s not home when John gets in from a long job, and he’s _furious._

How many times did he have to tell that boy to stay home with Sam before he got it through his fucking head? He doesn’t take the time to watch his brother, and he knows, he goddamn _knows_ those fucking fires follow him everywhere. John made sure the kid _knows_. Dean knows he’s not to leave his brother alone. John settles in to wait for his oldest, while Sam tries to make excuses for him.

“Dad, he just went out to the store!”

“Stop it, Sam. You don’t have to cover for him. He’s been gone way too long to just be going to the store, hasn’t he? It’s 3 in the morning. Kid should be back by now. Now get to bed. I’ll need to talk to your brother when he drags his ass in the door.”

As if on cue, the door opens, and Dean steps warily into the room. 

“De--!” 

“Dean.” John’s voice cuts Sam off. His son has a fresh cut high on his cheekbone. But he’s carrying groceries. At least he told the truth about _part _of his night, that’s a nice change. “Where have you been?”

“At the store, sir.”

“At this time of night?” Dean doesn’t say anything, just looks over at Sam.

“What happened to your--”

“Go to bed, Sammy. I’ll see you in the morning. Gotta talk to Dad.” His tone brokers no arguments from his little brother, but John hears Sammy grumbling as he heads back into his room. John follows Dean into the kitchen, where Dean starts putting away the groceries that he bought.

“Dad, I--”

“You what? You’re sorry? You were out fucking around while your brother was home alone? You get into a fight?” He breathes in through his nose. “No, kid. You went out and got some, huh? Tell me, son, were you with another fag like yourself tonight, or did you man up and actually get a woman? You let some guy from school stick it up your ass? Is he the one that socked you one? I should thank him for trying to set you right after you got your filthy hands on him,”

John steps closer, and Dean stands his ground, though he does flinch and look away. It pisses John off. This goddamn bitch can’t even look him in the eye after he let some fudgepacker bend him over and then punch him in the face. He taught him better than to let some fairy get the drop on him. He pushes Dean up against the wall, hand against his throat, and emphasizes each word he says with a shove against his throat, tightening his hand.

“Don’t. Leave. Your. Brother. Alone. Why is that so hard for you to understand? I’m providing for this family, boy. I don’t think it’s too much for me to ask for you to take care of your brother!” he lets himself shove Dean against the wall one last time, before letting go. “Goddamn it Dean, you know the only place Sam is safe is in your sight! You’re gonna cause one of those fires and so help me, if you get him killed in one, there will be hell to pay.” The sight of his idiot son gasping for air and clutching at his throat fills him with rage. 

“Look at you! Can’t even take a little pain without choking! Jesus fucking christ, you’re never going to grow up, are you?” He casts about, looking for an outlet. He sees a frying pan on the stove and grasps it by the handle. It’s not heavy, just cheap aluminum, but it’ll get the job done. He whirls around and aims toward Dean. This will teach him. This will finally get through to him. 

He nails his son on his arms as he lays on the floor trying to protect his head from the beating. John waits a beat for Dean to look up at him, and gives him one final _wham_! Right on the cheek. Dean stays down, and John is satisfied. He eases down into a kitchen chair, lights a cigarette, and pulls out his phone.

He calls into the school and says that Dean has the flu. His brother will pick up his homework. 

He knows that what he did was right, but he also knows that other people try to nose their way into their family business.

They got no right. He puts his cigarette out on his son’s arm, still laying on the floor like a goddamn pussy, and goes to bed.

________________________

Dean wakes with a throbbing ache in his head that’s not unlike the pounding beat of a bass drum. It’s not the first time, and it’s not the last time. What are the fucking odds that John would come home tonight? Dean really fucked up this time. He pulls himself into a sitting position. The simple movement makes his head swim and his stomach churn, he barely makes it to the sink before he’s throwing up.

He’s pretty sure he heard his dad call him into the school for a little while, right before that fucking burn on his arm took him over his pain threshold and into the darkness. He drags his ass into the bathroom for a shower, and then into his bedroom, where it’s blissfully dark. He shoves the money he made that night (minus the groceries) into the lining of his duffle and hears Sam shift in the bed.

“Dean?”

“Go to sleep, Sammy.” His voice is hoarse.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m always okay. Go back to sleep.”

More rustling sheets, and then, “‘night, D.”

“G’night, Sam.”

________________________

Sam eyes him suspiciously the next morning after Dean finishes running his laps around the block (he puked twice, but Dad made him keep going), and when he catches a glimpse of the bruises on his face and neck, he’s furious. Dean stays home from school for a week while they heal, and Sam begs him the whole time to tell him what happened.

“I got into a fight, man. Drop it.”

“But where? With who?”

Some girl’s boyfriend didn’t like the way I was looking at her and jumped me. I’m fine, Sam. I swear.”

“Why did Dad call you in absent? Since when does he do stuff like that?”

“I don’t know, since when have you been a little bitch?”

“I’m just trying to make sure you’re okay. Dad’s leaving again today. I don’t want you to go out and get beat up again.”

“Pretty sure that’s not going to be a problem while Dad’s gone, Sammy. But thanks.”

He gets an annoyed look, and corrects his brother, “it’s _Sam,_” and then stomps away.


	3. conflagration.

The fires are Dean’s fault. He knows he’s not setting them, but he thinks he might be cursed. By the time Sam is 17 and secretly applying for colleges he thinks Dean doesn’t know about, they’ve moved six more times. 

Sam’s graduating in a month, and Dean hopes the fire that he knows is coming holds out. His own high school graduation was cut off by one of those fires, which sparked almost immediately after he got his diploma. Dad wasn’t there, but he packed them all up as soon as Sam and Dean came home.

Sam’s leaving. He hasn’t said anything yet, but Dean knows. He’s just not sure where, yet. It’s a good thing, though. Dean can’t watch out for him if he leaves, but he won’t get caught up in a fire if he’s far away from his brother. Not that Sam knows about all the blazes Dean’s mere presence in a town seems to cause. He’s smart, he obviously knows there are a few too many accidental fires that happen, but Dean and his dad have never told him that it’s because of Dean, though John threatens to when he’s at his meanest.

_You want me to tell Sam? He hates how much we move, you _know_ he’ll hate you for being the reason we have to. I _let _him blame me. I’m doing you a _favor. _Now get in the fucking house, and tell your brother that you got caught up at work because you burned your arm on the stove, and that’s why you didn’t pick him up. Go!_

Dean absently rubs at the old burn on his forearm. John had held his arm to their glass top stove until Dean screamed.

_You cause these fires, I want you to feel it! That’s a fraction of the pain your mother felt, you little cocksucker._

His dad’s out of town for work again, having been at home for the last two days for his 34-hour restart, and he’s headed out on the road once more. Dean’s leaving for the night to see if he can’t make a few more bucks to send with Sam when he inevitably goes away. He’s saved almost six grand in his duffle, and he lives in fear of his dad finding it and figuring out how he’s earning it.

“You okay?” Sam asks, standing in the doorway.

“Yeah. Look, I’m heading out for the night.”

“Again?”

“Yeah, dude. Gonna go pick up a girl and rock her world if you know what I mean.”

Sam rolls his eyes and launches into the traditional argument. “I always know what you mean. Just be safe, okay? I don’t want to patch you up yet again because the girl had a boyfriend.”

Dean gives the same response every time, knowing exactly what his brother will say next. “No promises, Sammy.”

“It’s _Sam_.”

_Predictable. _“Yeah, I know. Look, what are you up to tonight?”

“Chris is going to come over. He’s got a new PlayStation and we’re gonna play some game.”

“‘Some game,’ huh? Sounds exciting. I’ll leave some money for pizza, alright?”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Here,” he takes forty bucks and leaves it on the table, “if you order a little extra and there’s some left for me tomorrow, that wouldn’t be the worst thing ever, okay? Later, nerd!”

“Thanks, D. Be careful!”

_Careful_. Dean snorts as he walks down the driveway. Careful really isn’t his thing. He pats his old Chevy Malibou as he walks by, leaving her in the driveway. It’s best to not take anything that could identify him when he goes out like this. The car is a piece of junk, but it does what he needs it to. It’s got nothing on the Impala his dad drives when he’s not driving his big rig around the country.

Dean pops the trunk of the car, and looking around, he quickly swaps his t-shirt for a shirt with a tighter fit that he won’t mind if it gets ruined. The thin shirt does fit pretty tightly, but not so tightly that he looks out of place. Just enough so the guys at the bar know what he’s selling.

________________________

Sammy’s going to Stanford. A full ride, too. Damn, that kid’s a genius. Dean’s been taking some general education requirement classes at a community college online for a few years (for free, yeah, he got a scholarship too, Sammy), but he’s never told his dad or Sam. For all they know, Dean spends his evenings looking at porn.

Which, he does sometimes. A man’s got needs.

Sammy’s going to Stanford, and Dad is _pissed off._

“You’re abandoning your family? You’re just going to leave? You can’t, you’re not even of age. I won’t sign the permission form, Samuel Winchester. You’re not going to college. You’ll get a job, like a man. You think you’re too good to work as a trucker like your old man?”

“I can sign the forms,” Dean interjects quietly, looking up at Sam. His dad stares at him, looking furious.

Sam looks back at Dean, devastated. “You can’t, dude. It has to be a legal guardian.”

“Yeah,” Dean agrees, nodding, “I can sign the forms, Sam.”

His dad absolutely fumes. “Dean, if you sign those fucking forms--”

“How come you can sign?”

“When I turned eighteen, Dad and I went and got me legal guardianship over you so that CPS couldn’t take you away if something happened to Dad on the road. Made it easier to sign permission for field trips and sports and stuff too. So. I can sign those papers if you want.” A pit is opening in Dean’s stomach, but this is good. Sam can get out, make something more of himself without Dean and his fires.

John slams out of the room, and Dean winces.

Sam looks shocked at this new revelation. “You mean that you and I could have left anytime in the last three years, legally. Why didn’t we leave? Why didn’t you _tell_ me?”

“He’s our dad, man.”

“You’re more my dad than he is. How come you never told me?” Sam’s angry now, and this is why Dean never said anything. He can’t just walk out on his dad.

Ignoring the question, Dean picks up a pen and signs his name. Handing the paperwork back to his brother, he asks, “when do you leave?”

Sam looks pained. “I can leave tonight. I have a bus ticket. There’s a sort of summer program that I was invited to. I wasn’t sure if I could go, but I think it might be better if I do. This family is so fucked up, you’ve gotta see that, dude. You should come with me.”

“Nah, someone’s gotta take care of Dad.”

“Dad can take care of himself!”

Dean can’t go with him, not if he wants to keep his little brother safe from the flames. “Sam. I have to stay.”

Sam’s eyes are searching Dean’s face, and whatever he finds is disappointing to him.

“I want you to be okay.”

“I’m always okay, Sam,” he looks over at the clock, “you want me to take you to the bus station?”

Sam clears his throat, “yeah. That’d be good. I just need to make sure I have everything.”

“Alright. Go check your room, and I’ll get my shoes on.”

Sam follows Dean to the hallway that their rooms share, and heads into his. Dean gets his shoes from his room and grabs the money he’s been saving for Sam. They meet back at the front door and see Dad leaning against the doorway to his own room, a bottle of whiskey in his hand.

“You walk out that door, Sam, you don’t ever come back, you hear me? Lose my number.” He takes a big gulp of whiskey and heads back into his room.

Dean feels like screaming. “Let’s go, Sam. You ready?”

Sam gives a shaky breath. “I’m ready.”

On the way to the bus station, Dean and Sam are quiet. Dean feels nothing, like if he lets himself have an emotion over this whole thing, he might lie down and never get back up again.

Dean pulls into the parking lot and turns to his little brother.

“Alright. You know where you’re going? You got everything you need?”

“Yeah. I-I think so.”

“You’re gonna be great, Sam. Work hard, get good grades, and don’t forget to call your big brother once in a while, okay?” He feels his throat get tight, and he digs in his pocket for the money.

“Here.” He shoves it into Sam’s hand. “There’s sixty-five hundred bucks there. If you spend it right, you should be all set until you can get yourself a job. Send me your address and I’ll send more when I can, alright?”

He tries to give it back, but Dean’s not having it, “Dean, I can’t take this--”

“You can and you will. What do you think I’ve been saving it for, huh? I knew you were gonna leave. Think of it as one last way I can take care of you.”

“Dean, come with me,” Sam begs him.

“Can’t, Sam. It’s better if you leave me behind. Just-- be good, okay?”

“Okay,” Sam looks unhappy, which Dean hates. It means he needs to fix something, but this is one case where there’s nothing left for him to do.

“Love you, little brother.”

Sam pulls him into a tight hug. “I love you, too.”

“You call if you need anything.”

“I will,” when they pull away from each other, Dean pats his brother on his shoulder reassuringly.

Dean nods over to the bus that’s pulled up, “that your number?”

Sam swallows thickly. “Yeah. I gotta-- I gotta go.”

“Be good, work hard, Sam.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Duh, Dean.”

“Bitch.”

“Jerk.” Sam shuts the door and Dean watches his little brother leave him until he can’t see him anymore. Tears blur his eyes and he snorts, wiping them away, it’s not like he’ll never talk to Sam ever again, he’s just being stupid. The bus drives down the road, taking Dean’s little brother away. 

________________________

When Dean comes back later, his dad is wasted, and he’s still angry.

“The fuck’re you doin’ here,” John slurs from the kitchen table, where he’s sat with the last of the bottle of whiskey and no glass in sight.

“I live here.”

John snorts. “Great. _You_ stick around, and Sam leaves. One that won’t stay and the other won’t fuckin’ _go. _Great.”

“Yeah,” that’s him alright. “Dad, you should go to bed.”

“You don’t tell me what to do. The only thing you were good for was watching Sam, and now that you let him leave you can’t even do that. You’re no good anymore.” He’s standing up, and take a final swig from the bottle, draining it.

Dean’s ears are ringing. John’s right, obviously, that’s all Dean has ever done. What is he even supposed to do now?

John is suddenly right in Dean’s face, ready to spit nails, “I should’ve sent you away the second you turned 18.”

Anger rushes through Dean. “I would’ve taken Sam with me,” Dean growls, defiant for once in his life. For the first time in his life, Dean’s not taking this shit lying down.

“D’you think Sam would want anything to do with you if he knew you’re the reason his mom’s dead? You’re the reason Sam doesn’t have a mom, and you think that little smartass wouldn’t abandon you the second he realizes he’s better off without you? I did you a _favor_, taking the blame for all the times we had to pick up and move, but we both know it was _because of you_. Mary’s dead because of your _fucking fires_!”

The pain from John’s statement is almost a physical blow because of course, it’s true. Dean staggers back somewhat. Sam wouldn’t want anything to do with Dean if he knew. Isn’t that why Dean let him go?

Suddenly, the pain becomes all too real. John’s thrown the empty whiskey bottle at Dean, and Dean isn’t fast enough to dodge it. It shatters against his skull, and he sees stars, stumbling back against the wall. Stunned, he slides to the floor.

“It’s all your fault, you idiot boy. You’ve been nothing but a god damn disappointment and I am finished with you.”

He’s gone for an unknowable amount of time, Dean can’t think straight enough to keep track, but then is back in Dean’s field of vision. His head is ringing from the blow, and he thinks he might be bleeding.

He looks up at his dad, the person in his life he’s supposed to be able to rely on. John has a baseball bat in his hands, face dark like a thundercloud. He takes a swing, and all Dean sees is darkness.

________________________

When he comes to, he finds a note. The words swim in front of his eyes, but eventually, they make sense.

“The house is paid until Friday. Don’t come looking for me.”

Dean has two days to figure out what he’s going to do, and he can hardly think through the pain in his head. He can barely even see straight, dots keep floating in front of his eyes and he can’t clear them.

He manages to get his phone out of his pocket. The screen has a crack in it, but it still works. He calls Bobby, who probably wants nothing to do with him, he’s John's friend, after all. But he’s been cleaning up messes from the Winchesters for a long time, and Dean has no one else to call. Sam isn’t even an option, he has to go to school and make something of himself. The world is starting to sort of fade to brown, and Dean hears a voice saying his name.

Oh yeah. He called Bobby. He brings the phone up to his ear and winces, his arm protesting the movement.

“Bobby?” His voice is hoarse, but it’s still there.

“Dean? What’s going on?”

“Don’ feel so good, Bob.”

“Where’s your brother?” Makes sense, him asking after Sammy. Sammy’s the good one, Dean looked out for him and now he’s gone. Dean’s gotta let him know that the kid is alright.

“Gone. Took’im to the bus… place. Las’ night. He’s goin’ to Stanford, Bobby.” _He left me_, is what Dean wants to say, but that’s too pathetic even for Dean. He reminds himself that it’s a good thing that Sam left.

“Yeah, I know, he called me, wanted me to check in on you,” there’s a long hesitation where neither of them speaks, and then, “Dean, are you drunk?”

_Drunk? Did I drink anything? _“Don’ think so. Dad might be. Fuck. Hurts, Bobby.” Dean’s head aches, but he’s sort of remembering last night.

“Where’s John, boy?”

“He’s gone too, man,” he laughs, “they’re all gone. Guess I’ll go too.” No one needs Dean anymore. Maybe he’ll just drive his car off a goddamn cliff, put everyone out of their misery. He tries to stand up but doesn’t make it very far. Maybe that plan will have to wait a minute.

“Dean, what are you talking about? Don’t you dare get in your car.” Did he say that last part out loud? He’s having a hard time keeping track. “John left?”

Dean’s starting to feel tired again. Bobby sounds worried, but Dean gets why his dad left. He just doesn’t know why he didn’t see it coming. “S’a good idea. No one needs me.”

“Don’t be an idiot. And don’t do _anything_. John _left_?”

“Yeah. S’my fault. Din’ watch S’mmy.” The room is a little bit blurry.

“Dean! What happened?” He can hear Bobby moving around, softly swearing under his breath. A jingle that sounds like keys. Or jingle bells. Maybe Bobby’s Santa.

“Dunno. I did bad stuff a’gin. Always m’fault, amirite?” He laughs again because this is suddenly hysterically funny. He stayed with Dad instead of going with Sam so he could watch out for John, and he fucking left, and Bobby’s _Santa._

“I’m not Santa,” Did he say that out loud? “Where are you, Dean?”

“House.” Where else would he be?

“What city?” What city? Dean’s unsure.

“Uhhh… Salem?” That sounds right. He’s sure the town starts with an “s”.

Bobby curses, “Massachusetts or Oregon?”

Dean snorts. “Forgot there’re two. That’s dumb, dude.”

“_Dean!_”

“Uh, Or’gon.”

“Dean, I’ll be there soon. Stay put.”

“Why’re you gonna be there? Shouldn’t come, Bobby. Should just let me die.” The cliff idea has merit, Dean thinks. He could die in a fire, like mom did. Maybe he’d see his mom again. Or maybe it would be nothing, after; just blackness. That would be nice, too, in its own way.

“You’re not dyin’. Just stay put, boy. I’ll be there in eight hours.”

“Mmm. Don’t know if I can move, so thas prolly good,” not being able to stand up is definitely a flaw in his plan, he’ll give Bobby that.

“You can’t move?”

“Gonna throw up, Bobby,”

“No, you have to tell me the address,” Dean gives it to him. Bobby’s end of the phone sounds kinda noisy, like the wind is blowing hard. It makes his brain hurt a little, and he thinks maybe he should go back to sleep. If he wakes up, he’ll figure out what to do then. 

“Too windy, Bobby. Hurts m’ears. Gonna hang up.”

“Dean, don--”

Dean passes out again.

________________________

Seven and a half hours on the road, and Bobby’s still not sure that he shouldn't have called an ambulance. He yelled at John’s voicemail on the way there, but John hadn’t answered. Figures the son of a bitch would be avoiding him. He tries calling Dean again but it goes straight to voicemail. Shit.

All that talk of driving off a cliff has Bobby worried. What if Dean got himself up and into his car? Did he even have a car, or did John take that with him? No way John left him the Impala, but he’s pretty sure Dean drives some crappy little Chevy. _Die in a fire, like mom_. Bobby can’t let that happen. Damn kid thinks his entire purpose in life is to watch out for his brother, what did John _think_ would happen when Sam went away?

When he gets to the address that Dean had told him, he sees Dean’s little car in the driveway, but no Impala. Bobby doesn’t know why he’s surprised that John actually left Dean. Son of a bitch is always yammering on about how important family is, but you’d never know it based on how John treats his.

The door is unlocked, and Bobby lets himself in, calling for Dean. He hears a groan coming from the kitchen and stops in shock.

“Dean?” The kitchen has glass _everywhere_. The oven door is smashed, the table is flipped over. Dean is laying on his back with impressive bruises on his face and his wrist is bent in a way that wrists should not be bent. He’s got a lot of blood on his face and on the side of his head, and there’s a smear of it on the floor, where a piece of paper is crumpled up. Dean opens his eyes and groans again.

“Dad?”

“No, son, Bobby.” He kneels down next to Dean, trying to assess the damage, and how he’s going to get him into his truck to go to the hospital. He gets Dean to open his eyes, and sees that his pupils look like different sizes. Not good.

“Why’re you here?”

Dean not remembering the phone call is another not-good sign. “You called me, ya idjit.”

“S’riusly? You shouldn't've come, I’m fine,” Dean responds, and that is a load of shit if Bobby’s ever heard it.

“Boy, you’re sitting in a kitchen that looks like a damn crime scene surrounded by glass. You definitely have a concussion. I’m glad I came,” he helps Dean sit up, and sees the dark bruise on the kid’s face. “Damn, Dean, what did John do to you?” Next time Bobby sees John, that man is in for a world of hurt.

“Nuthin’. S’my fault. I’m fine.”

Bobby rolls his eyes at Dean’s statement but cringes internally. His fault? “Bullshit you’re fine. Let’s go. Hospital.”

“Bobby, don’ need a hospital, m’_fine._”

“How many fingers am I holding up, kid?” Bobby asks while he helps him up from the floor.

“Not a kid,” Dean grumbles as he struggles to his feet, “I dunno. Eight?”

“I don’t even have my hand up, son. Let’s go.”

“Tell ‘em I got into a fight, Bobby. Don’ wanna get dad in trouble, it was m’own fault,” Dean is begging, stumbling as Bobby helps him out to the truck. Damn kid always protects his family, even when his family doesn’t deserve it, and it pisses Bobby right off.

Dean falls asleep on the way, and this time Bobby can’t wake him up.

“Balls!” He speeds up. It’s already been god knows how long since Dean was injured, and there’s no more time to waste. It’s already been at least eight hours.

He pulls up to the emergency department shouting for help. A couple of orderlies see Dean’s condition, and one goes in to grab a nurse and a gurney.

Bobby curses John Winchester’s name, parks the truck in the nearest spot, and follows them inside.

________________________

_Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep._

There’s something tickling his nose, and he can’t make the beeping stop. Sam’s fucking alarm. He reaches for the nightstand to hit the clock, and finds that his hand feels funny. Lots of things feel funny, actually. Stiff. And it hurts. He opens his eyes.

Fuck. He’s in the hospital. _Dad tried to kill me with a bat_, Dean remembers with a wince. Which of course, hurts.

Sleeping next to his bed is Bobby, with his cap pulled low over his eyes. Dean lets his head fall back onto the mattress of the bed and takes an inventory of pain. Head hurts? Check. Wrist? That’s a cast. He’s got some definite bruises on his ribs, he can feel it. And his knee hurts when he bends his leg.

“You’ve got some stitches in your noggin’ there, too.”

Dean whips his head around and immediately regrets the fast movement. “Ow.”

“‘Ow’, he says. You damn idjit. You’ve got a concussion, don’t move your head so fast.”

“What the fuck, Bobby?”

“Boy, you think I’m gonna find you bleeding to death in your kitchen and not bring you to the hospital?”

“I wasn’t bleeding to death,” Bobby rolls his eyes. It makes Dean’s head hurt. “I appreciate you coming all this way, Bobby. I’m fine. Thanks. You don’t have to stay.” He looks down at his lap and fidgets with the blanket as he talks to Bobby.

“You been out for a day and a half. I packed up your shit from the house and took your car over to a public lot, it should be fine. Doc said if you woke up today you could be out of here by tomorrow.”

“Great. Tell me what lot and I’ll get out of your hair.”

Bobby crosses his arms and narrows his eyes at Dean. “Where are you headed, then?”

“Huh?”

“You got a destination?”

He hadn’t really thought that far. “Nah. Just gonna drive, I guess.”

“You told me to let you die, Dean,” which, Dean doesn’t really remember, but it doesn’t sound too out of the realm of possibility. And Bobby has no reason to lie to him, but he hates that Bobby sounds worried. “You’re coming home with me.”

“I have a concussion, Bobby, I probably said a lot of shit,” he swallows thickly, “you don’t have to take care of me.”

“Someone should,” and that stings. Dean takes care of himself just fine.

“You heard from Dad?” He almost doesn’t want to know the answer. Did his dad ditch him without a second thought, or did he call Bobby to at least make sure Dean was okay?

“I hear from your dad again, I’m gonna kill him.”

“It’s not his fault. I let Sam leave,” he does his best to avoid Bobby’s gaze. 

“Boy, you didn’t _let _Sam do anything.”

“I signed the papers so he could go.” Bobby signed as the witness to the guardianship papers, so he should be well aware of how much this whole mess really is Dean’s fault. 

Bobby surprises him yet again. “Good. I’d’ve forged John’s signature if you didn’t sign. Sam wants to go to school, he should go to school.”

“Still my fault Dad’s messed up.”

“Your dad was messed up way before you showed up, kid.”

“Not a kid, Bobby.”

“I’m gonna go tell your doctor you’re awake. Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone.”

“I’m in a hospital bed, what could I possibly do?” Besides, he’s tired. He’ll figure out what happens next when his brain stops feeling like it’s trying to escape from his skull.

“I’m sure you could think of something.” Dean thinks _yeah, that’s probably true._

The doctor tells Dean he can leave tomorrow if he’s got someone to take care of him. Bobby tells the doctor that Dean will be staying with him, no problem. And he won’t tell Dean where his car is until the morning.

“I’m not having your dumb ass in a car wreck because you snuck out of the hospital with a concussion.”

Dean grimaces, but Bobby gets his way. After a mediocre hospital breakfast, Bobby pushes Dean’s wheelchair out to his truck. He helps Dean get in (his sprained knee fucking hurts), hands off the wheelchair, and climbs in.

“Got your prescription?” Dean holds up the pharmacy bag. “Good. Let’s roll.”

Bobby takes them to a motel for the night and tells Dean that he’s got a guy coming to drive Dean’s car back to Berkeley for him.

“Bobby, I can drive it.”

“Boy you can’t even read a book right now without giving yourself a migraine. Go back to bed, I’m takin’ care of this.”

Bobby is way too good to Dean. He’s also making it very difficult for Dean to go on his own way. Not that Dean has anywhere to go, exactly. He was just going to drive around, maybe stay in a couple of motels. He’s got to figure out what he’s going to do for money, all busted up like he is. Jesus, maybe driving off a cliff would be the best way out of this mess. He broods all the way back to the motel room Bobby rented.

That night, they’ve got the radio playing on low, since Dean can’t watch TV and he can’t read a book and he’s basically bored out of his skull. Bobby and Dean look up when they hear the newscaster mention the name of the hospital Dean was released from earlier that day.

_“--that Salem Health is on fire. Do they know what kind of damage they’re expecting yet?”_

_“I read that the entire emergency department and the ICU both caught. And what’s weird about it is that they aren’t even in the same area of the hospital.”_

_“Wow. I heard they definitely think it’s arson.”_

_“Nah, I heard electrical failure.”_

_“In two places?”_

_“It’s just what I heard, I don’t know what happened!” _

Dean. Dean happened. Fuck, it found him. 

_“Do we know if anyone was hurt?”_

_“The most recent casualty count--”_

Dean turns off the radio before he can hear how many people he’s killed. He leans over the bed to the trash can at the side and vomits.

“Holy hell, boy!” Bobby rushes over to help, but all he can do is pat Dean’s back until the nauseated feeling passes. “Those antibiotics getting you?”

“Bobby, that fire--”

“Yeah, it’s a good thing we got out of there when we did.”

Dean can’t tell Bobby about the fire that follows him, so he simply nods. When Bobby makes him drink a glass of water and take more pain meds, he does so without protest.

________________________

The drive down to Berkeley, where Bobby owns a garage that he runs takes four hours longer than it should, because Dean needs to stop and take medication, and he needs to eat when he takes the antibiotic they gave him. And riding in a car gives him a migraine.

And Dean can’t stop thinking about those people being dead because of his fucked up fire… thing.

Sitting at a diner wearing his sunglasses inside like a fucking douchebag, Dean grumps to Bobby, “you shouldn’t have to do this.” His voice is rough from not speaking for so long, but Bobby pretends not to notice, for which Dean is thankful.

“You’re right, your dad should. But he ain’t here, and we both know he wouldn’t do it if he was. So you gotta put up with me. I got room at the house for you, you ain’t puttin’ me out none.”

“You gotta let me pay rent,”

“I don’t gotta do anything, but I will give you a job. No rent.” Bobby cuts into his pancakes.

“Then I’ll clean.”

“You’ll sit your ass down and let your head heal.”

Dean has a sudden realization that has him sitting up straight in his seat, and then wincing from the twinge the quick movement gives his head and his torso. “Fuck, I can’t even look at a computer screen.”

Bobby snorts derisively “You can live without your porn, Dean.”

“Fuck. It’s not that. It’s--shit. I didn’t even tell anyone.”

“Spit it out, kid.”

“Not a fucking kid,” Dean mutters, then sighs, “alright. I’ve been taking classes.”

“What kind of classes?”

“Just at a community college. Online. When I graduated high school I got a scholarship from this place to take like 50 credits for free. So I’ve been taking some general education classes.”

“Why would you keep that a secret?”

“I dunno.” Dean shrugs, looking away. “Dad, I guess.”

“He ain’t too big on college.” Understatement.

“Yeah. He’s not. But I didn’t tell anyone at the school that I’m out of commission, and now I’m gonna fail the 9 credits I got goin’ right now. Can’t read, can’t look at a computer screen. And I bet you anything I’m past the add/drop period.”

“What classes?”

“Uh.” Dean scratches the side of his nose. “American literature of the 20th century, anatomy and physiology, and statistics.”

“Okay. I think we might be able to work with that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, yeah, we should let your teachers know that you haven’t been able to do anything for a few days because you have a concussion, but I think I can help you do your assignments.”

“Uh. How?”

“Well, you can talk, and I’ll type. I’ll read out loud to you. Do you have your textbooks?”

Dean stares at him. “Bobby, this is a lot of extra work for you--”

“Do you have your textbooks?”

“I -- yeah. They’ll be in one of the bags that’s in my car. But --”

“Then Garth’ll have ‘em there tomorrow,” Bobby sips coffee, and acknowledges, “it ain’t gonna be easy. Hearing things and reading ‘em are different. But I think we’ll get through it. I might not have gone to college, but I’m no slouch, son.”

“I know,” Dean concedes. Bobby’s gonna help him no matter what he says, so he might as well go with it. “So, how do we do this?”

“Well. I think we should email your professors. We got your wristband as proof you were in the hospital. You got your computer?”

“Yeah. It’s in the truck.” Bobby gets up and heads out to get it. “What, now?”

“Yeah, now. You wanna wait longer? They’re gonna want to know sooner rather than later, princess. And this place has WiFi.”

“I guess.”

When Bobby brings the laptop in, he opens it up, hooks it up to the WiFi for the diner, and follows Dean’s directions to navigate to his email.

“Alright, who are we emailing first?”


	4. embers.

Life at Bobby’s is good, but Dean knows he has to move on. It’s been a year, and Dean can tell that the fire is coming. He feels the itch on the back of his neck like someone is watching him. 

Bobby pays him more than he should for the work he does, but every time Dean complains, his paycheck goes up a tiny bit. It’s like some sort of twisted reverse psychology that has Dean glaring at Bobby over the dinner table but also keeps him quiet. As a result, his bank account is actually looking pretty solid. And since Dad took his debts with him, Dean is suddenly in the best financial situation of his life

So he’s gotta go. But he has no idea where. Then, this hipster chick shows up with this tan flaky-painted, rusted up Dodge Sprinter van, and she’s begging Bobby to take it off her hands.

“My ex-boyfriend bought this stupid thing, and was going to transform it into a camper van, which is like, fine, but then he left it sitting in my garage for a year while he went off and banged this other chick while he was ‘finding himself’ on a ‘personal journey’. He pissed me off. And now I want to sell the van. But he tore out the seats and stuff, and so no dealerships will take it. Please, take this thing.”

“I can appreciate the need to get rid of it, but if it ain’t yours, then I don’t want to get in a whole heap of legal trouble when he reports it stolen.”

“No, that’s the best part!” she reaches into the van and pulls some papers from the passenger seat. “I own it! He had shitty credit, and so he gave me the money, and we put it in my name.”

“Well, that’s a horse of a different color. How much you want for it?”

“I know these vans can go for pretty high, and I looked it up; this model and this year are worth about thirty-five thousand. But honestly, I’d give it to you for three thousand. It’s a piece of shit. It’s all rusted, the paint job sucks, and like I said, he tore all the seats and shit out of the back, look,” she opens the back doors, and the inside is like she said, completely gutted, aside from the driver and passenger seats.

“Fire it up and pop the hood, I wanna see how she runs.”

The girl hops in, pops the hood, and turns the engine. It’s a little stuttery at first, so Dean steps up next to Bobby to take a look. It’s a little busted up; it needs a few new parts, he can see the cap for her washer fluid is missing. He walks around the thing, feeling Bobby’s eyes on him. He ignores it. The van needs new tires, and maybe new wheels, but it’s really not in bad shape. The rust is contained to one of the doors, and Dean’s pretty sure they have a couple of these vans piled up in the yard somewhere that he could find a replacement on. When he looks back at Bobby, the man is already talking to Hipster Girl again.

“Well, you’re definitely right about this thing not being worth its sticker price. But it’s still runnin’ okay. Don’t know that I’d feel comfortable giving you less than four thousand.”

“Seriously?”

“Yep. There’s a pretty good market for these vans if you know where to look. And I ain’t in the business of short changin’ people who already got short-changed. Deal?”

“Fuck yeah, we have a deal!” the girl enthuses, “I can’t wait to get this thing out of my garage. I don’t have a car, and I live in the city, and it’s like, I could rent my garage out to someone else or use it for storage, you know?” Dean hears her talking to Bobby as they walk over toward the office to get all the paperwork sorted.

Dean hops up into the back of the van. He can see it. Full bed at the end, there. Storage underneath. A countertop along one side, a single burner stove, a little fridge. A bench with a tabletop. Storage up top. Goose up the horsepower and the suspension, you could even put some external storage on there, no problem. He’d paint the outside, of course. And he’d need some kind of insulation, and some way to power the electrics. A freshwater tank.

“Hey princess, you waiting for someone to tell you to get back to work?” Bobby calls him from outside the van. Dean sees him standing with his eyebrows up out the front windshield. He waves his hand at him and jumps down. 

“She gone?”

“Yeah, she got one of those Lyft things to pick her up.” He looks over at Dean. “What do you think of the van?”

“I want it.”

Bobby narrows his eyes at Dean. “Why?”

Dean shrugs. “Just do. I can make payments on it.”

“Of course you can, idjit. I write your paychecks. I’ll take a thousand for it.”

“Bobby, you just bought it for--”

“I know what I bought it for. That’s what I’m sellin’ it for. A thousand. Take it or leave it.”

“I’ll take it.”

“That’s what I thought. Already put your name on the papers.”

“What?”

“Idjit.” Dean stares after Bobby, who’s already walking back into the house.

________________________

Dean spends his spare time finding parts and fixing up the van. It needs new wheels and tires as he suspected. He finds the new door for it. It doesn’t match the color yet, but he’ll fix that eventually.

He replaces the parts that don’t work, puts together an engine from bits and pieces that he finds, and some that he buys until it runs smoothly and more powerfully than he suspects it ever did before he got his hands on it. He gets up under the van and strengthens up the suspension, because now he knows he definitely wants to put rails on the top and a carrier on the back. He saw one on Pinterest (shut up, he uses it to look at cars. And recipes. And now camper vans.) that had a sweet setup, and now he’s trying to frame that out on the inside. 

He goes to the hardware store and picks out some totally bitchin’ (and trendy, but don’t tell Bobby) wood laminate floors. He grabs some foam insulation too, and spends the evening attaching that to the walls and the roof, and then puts up some of the white wood paneling that he also bought. He calls it a night, feeling confident about his idea.

Since Dean is being chased by fire, he needs to run.

Logically, that makes no sense, he knows. Fire isn’t alive. Fire can’t chase. But it is, and it does. It found him in Lawrence, and then again in St. Louis. And then again in Miami. It followed him all the way from Miami to Salem, Massachusetts. Dean doesn’t know if the fire found him there, but they moved 6 months after they got there and it found him in Little Rock and another dozen places along the road. Oregon is just the most recent in a long line of fires.

He can’t outrun the fire, but he can outsmart it, he thinks.

Three weeks later, Dean’s got the inside framed out, including a piece of foam for him to sleep on and some bedding, and decides he’s ready to go. Now he just needs to tell Bobby. He’ll make him dinner, and then he’ll break the news.

Dean goes all out. He makes his awesome bacon butter burgers. He makes fries in the deep frier, and he makes coleslaw from scratch. He even fries up eggs to put on the top. When he slides a plate over to Bobby, he gets a stink eye and feels defensive.

“What?”

“What did you do?”

“What makes you think I did something?”

“The fact that you’re makin’ me dinner and lookin’ at me like I kicked your dog.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Then spill.”

“I’m ready.” Dean’s heart pounds, hoping Bobby understands what he means just from that and they won’t have to talk it all out. No such luck.

“Congratulations. Ready for what?”

“Ready to go.”

Bobby puts down his burger and sits back. “You know you don’t have to go.”

“Yeah, I do though. I’m 22, Bobby. I’m just crampin’ your style here, old man. Now you can have Ellen over without waiting until I’m not around.”

Bobby splutters, “that was one time!”

“Yeah, but you want it to be more. So, consider this my two weeks notice. I wanna hit the road in my new bitchin’ van.”

Bobby shakes his head in exasperation. “Does Sam know you’re leaving?”

Dean fidgets. He looks away. He mumbles, “I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m with dad.”

“What was that?”

Dean sighs. “He thinks I’m with dad.”

Bobby frowns. “Why would he think that?”

“I uh, never told him about what went down in Salem. And I never mentioned to him that I was working here. We don’t talk that much, we mostly text.”

“Why the hell are you lyin’ to your brother?”

“He’d want me to move to Palo Alto.”

“Would that be so bad?”

“...It wouldn’t be a good idea, Bobby.”

“Is this about you bein’ bad luck or something? Your dad always said somethin’ about that, but Dean, that was just how he justified his paranoid ass moving you boys all around the country!”

“It wasn’t, Bobby. Things happen when I’m around. Or after I’m around.”

“Don’t you let your old man tell you--”

“Remember the fire in Salem?”

“You weren’t even at the hospital anymore.”

“That doesn’t matter. I was there before.” Dean shakes his head. “It’s happened before. The house in Lawrence burned down.”

“That was bad wiring, Dean, that was an accident.”

“Sure. But then our apartment building, in St. Louis?”

Bobby narrows his eyes. “Bad wiring.”

“Okay. How about the school in Miami? The pizza joint in Michigan? A diner that I worked at had a kitchen fire in South Carolina.”

“That’s some string of bad luck for sure, Dean, but that don’t mean--”

“Bobby, I’ve been connected to 50-ish fires.”

“That can’t be right.”

Dean laughs without humor. “Trust me, it’s right.”

“And you don’t know anything about them?” Bobby queries. He’s probably thinking the same thing Dad was -- Dean must have set them.

“No. Believe me, Dad thought the same thing. He kept me under strict house arrest for days, until the pizza place burned down. I hadn’t been there in weeks. But everywhere that burns down is connected to me. Sometimes it’s not a place, though. This guy that I got into a fight with in high school’s motorcycle caught fire in the school parking lot. A gazebo that I had made out with some girl in burned down.

“It’s just way too many fires to be a coincidence. So, I’ve gotta go. And uh, I checked your smoke detectors when I moved in, just in case. But you should probably check ‘em again, periodically, after I leave for a while.” Because it had to be Dean the fires were following. Dean had been to that library the day before it burned down. He had been to that church (he was trying to impress a girl, so what?). God, his fucking Middle School burned, and Sam didn’t even go there, just Dean. Clearly, the fires followed him, not his brother. 

“You want me to get a fire extinguisher too?” Bobby asks sardonically.

“I already did. You’ve got two on each floor.”

“Jesus, Dean.”

“I’m serious about this, Bobby. I couldn’t deal with this place burning too,” Dean turns serious eyes onto Bobby, wants him to know that he is one hundred percent not kidding. Bobby’s place going up in flames is unacceptable.

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you,” Bobby acknowledges gruffly.

“I’d leave sooner, but I don’t want to leave any projects unfinished that I was working on for you.”

“You don’t have to worry about those.”

“You want me to leave sooner?” Dean wasn’t sure he was ready to leave quite _that_ soon.

“No, I just mean that you don’t have to work the last two weeks. I ain’t kept you here just because you can fix a car, son.” Bobby picks up his burger again, “I’m real sorry to see you go. I like the company.”

“You gettin’ soft on me, old man?” Dean teases.

“Shut up, idjit.”

“You can just have Ellen over, I bet she’d cook for you.”

Bobby’s ears turned pink, and he glared across the table. “Eat your damn burger, Dean.”

________________________

He leaves Berkeley behind and drives up the coast.

In Portland, he finds a whole group of people who camp in their vans. He meets a guy named Ezekiel who helps him perfect the layout and fix the electrical.

He’s at a flea market, picking through some wood at a stall, when he comes across a piece of dark wood that was smooth all over, except for one edge, which was unfinished. 

“Hey, man,” he calls over to the guy running the stall, “how much you want for this?”

“That there is a piece of live-edge walnut, and I’ve been having a hard time moving it, on account of its awkward size. Too small for a coffee table, too big for a dining table. You could take it off my hands for… fifty?”

“Deal, dude.”

He takes it back to Ezekiel’s shop, and the guy helps him cut it and mount his little sink and his induction cooktop on top, with his tiny oven underneath. Dean thanks him for his help, and offers to pay him, but Ezekiel declines.

“I simply enjoy helping, Dean. I hope your journey is smooth, and that you find what you are looking for.”

He talks so seriously, all the time. “Well, thanks. I appreciate all your help. Not sure I would’ve figured all that out without a hand.”

“I was happy to do it,” Ezekiel answers. And when he says “come back again soon,” Dean’s pretty sure he means it.

And he was on the move again. 

In bumfuck, Arizona, he meets a mechanic named Walt, who gives him a discount on a new paint job if Dean lets Walt fuck him. He hasn’t done that in a while; there was no need at Bobby’s. But a discount is a discount, and the new metallic gray paint job helps make his van look a little less creepy parked in lots. That old flaky tan paint was getting him suspicious looks everywhere he went.

A guy named Garth he’s been talking to on the VanDwellers subreddit meets him in Colorado and helps him mount solar panels to the roof. Garth gets a friend of his to show Dean how to hook up his electric so that the solar panels charge his battery, but the alternator charges it up while he drives, too.

In San Diego, he meets a redhead named Charlie, who immediately declares them best friends. She hitches a ride with him back to her little house in Los Angeles after learning that Dean was saving up money for a nice camera. Her friend Kevin, it turned out, was selling his, because it ended up being that he didn’t have much of an eye for photography at all. Charlie also takes one look at his computer and spends a whole evening telling him what a piece of crap it is. She tells him that she’s building him a new computer, that he needs it to edit the amazing photos he’s going to take, and that she won’t take no for an answer. She gets him a fancy iPad Pro with all the bells and whistles that she jailbreaks and does a bunch of other stuff to that Dean doesn’t understand. He fixes her roof as payment, and she makes him promise to text her every single day.

By the time he’s back east in Bedford, Maryland, he has a new mattress (he upgraded from the slice of cheap foam he picked up at a hardware store. This one isn’t 3 inch craft foam, it’s memory foam, and Dean has a hard time leaving it in the morning), soft sheets, a cozy comforter, and he’s finished the upholstery on the bench seat that sits at the table in a pattern that the woman at the store said was “herringbone”, but just reminds Dean of comfortable old couches. He stays in Maryland until the weather turns, padding his wallet with under the table jobs, back door poker games, and a few paying customers who didn’t mind dark alleyways and 20-something men on their knees.

Within a year, Dean has his van finished. He’s got some ‘peel and stick’ tiles on the wall behind his counter, where he’s also mounted a magnetic knife rack. His little fridge is under the counter, and there’s a fold-down tabletop that he uses to do his schoolwork and eat his meals. He’s always making tweaks and upgrades, and it isn’t always easy making repairs on the go (finding someone willing to lend power tools to a stranger in a van is always a challenge), but Dean hadn’t encountered a fire in the entire year and a half he had been alone. And he likes being able to park himself wherever he wants, and just _be._

It was as lonely as it was exhilarating, however, and Dean thought _well? What’s next?_

What do you do with your life running from fire? What did he use to want to do, before everything got so screwed up? As a child, he knew he wanted a job that was important. He was good at helping. Good at following directions. Give Dean a procedure, and he could execute it flawlessly. He still remembers having to stitch up a cut on his dad’s ribs when a bar fight got out of hand. Dean didn’t understand until later why his dad refused to go to the hospital in town. And Dean couldn’t exactly drive him to the next town over. He caught on a few years later when after using his insurance card from his dad to get Sam’s broken arm taken care of, the hospital burned down the same night they came home.

They left that town in a hurry, and Dean never forgot the lesson. He still has a scar on the back of his neck from the beer bottle his dad threw at his head when he found out.

Dean opens up his tablet on its little keyboard, and types in, “jobs that help people.”

_Police Officer_. Yeah, right. Dean spends most of his time avoiding the police, thank you very much. A little too nosy for his tastes. _Registered Nurse_. No thanks. Working in a hospital gives him the heebs and the jeebs. Besides, taking orders from doctors had never been his strong suit. Something medical maybe, though. _Paramedic._ Huh. A paramedic. Driving around in an ambulance, getting on the scene, helping people when they need it the most. Dean could do that. He’s been doing minor motel room medical procedures for a long time, imagine if he could apply that skill to a job. Shit, he’s even been taking some anatomy courses from a community college that allowed him to take courses online. He starts looking into the qualifications he would need to become a paramedic.

_What about the fire?_ A voice whispers to him.

_Fuck the fire_. It hasn’t found him in a while. 

Besides, the classes he’s taken so far fill a lot of the requirements for a bachelor’s degree in Anatomy and Physiology. The Paramedic course takes two years. Shit, a year after that he could move up the ladder and become a critical care paramedic, according to Dean’s web search. 

Logging into his account at the community college, Dean maps out how long it would take him to finish the general courses he’s taking and get a degree. Turns out he doesn’t need a bachelor’s degree to get a job as a paramedic, but he might as well finish what he started. Another 6 months at the City College of San Francisco gets him to an associate’s degree, but if Dean transfers to San Francisco State University he could have a bachelor’s degree in biology with a concentration in physiology within two years.

He pulls out his phone and sends a message.

  
**Dean:** I think I’m coming back to CA.  
**Charlie:** Whaaaaaaaaaa???? WHERE  
**Dean:** Applying to SFSU. I’ll swing by on the way  
**Charlie:** You better, bitch!

Two years is longer than he’s ever stayed in one place, and Dean worries about the fire. But if he keeps moving his van every few nights, he reasons, there’s no way it’ll catch up.

A plan in place, Dean submits his application to SFSU containing the transcripts from his previous semesters at CCSF, then hits the road.


	5. how am I supposed to breathe with no air

“Castiel, this is Daphne,” Castiel’s mother’s shadow crosses over the book that he’s reading on the back porch, and he’s forced to look up and see that she’s gently pushing a girl that looks about his age down into the seat across from him.

“Your father and I will be just inside with her parents. We will be able to see you through the door,” she gives him a look that feels significant, but he can’t decipher it, “you’ll be entertaining Daphne here before we have dinner.”

“Okay,” Castiel picks up his bookmark to mark his place. Gabriel had given this to him to read. His mother didn’t exactly approve of his reading about the theory of evolution, but she wasn’t able to firmly stand against him reading a book that was so clearly academic.

“Hello, Castiel.” Daphne is pretty, Castiel supposes, but she doesn’t look terribly excited to be in his presence. Not that he was excited by her interruption of his reading, but he was raised to obey his parents’ wishes, and they wished him to entertain the daughter of a friend. If only he was more… well. Entertaining. Gabriel would’ve had this girl entertained, if a bit horrified. Castiel found that most other kids his age weren’t particularly interested in things that he was interested in, and it made for strained relationships.

He chooses a topic he feels is safe, given that her parents are friends with his own.

“Do you go to church nearby?”

Daphne brightens. “We just moved down the street. We’ll be attending Amazing Grace Christian on Sunday and your mother kindly invited us to sit with your family.”

“Oh. That will be pleasant. The sermons are interesting,” if you enjoy being told that anyone different from you is going to burn in hell, the sermons certainly are interesting, Castiel thinks to himself. Amazing Grace’s pastor, Zachariah is not exactly who Castiel would choose to spend much time with.

It’s only been within the last year since Castiel turned sixteen and his brother Gabriel left to move out west and pursue his dreams of being a professional chef, that Castiel has begun to understand that everything is not all black and white.

Recently, Gabriel told Castiel about his classes at Culinary School, and about how his roommate performs in drag shows as a hobby.

_“I’m going out tonight with Steven and his friends. Devine Tension is performing tonight!”_

_“I don’t understand.”_

_“Devine Tension is Steven’s stage name.”_

_“Your roommate is transsexual?”_

_“Oh, Cassie. No. He’s gay, and he’s a drag queen. And the word you were going for is transgender. I’ll send you a book about it.”_

_“Mother would never let me read a book about that.”_

_“I’ll figure something out, Cassie. We’ve got to work on expanding your world! There’s so much more than Mom and Dad would ever tell you, and I have a feeling you’re gonna love it! But I’ve gotta go, Cassie, we’re leaving in a bit. Watch for a package from me, alright?”_

_“Alright. Be safe, Gabriel.”_

_“Love you, Cassie.”_

_“I love you too.”_

Castiel had been shocked by the conversation. Gabriel’s roommate was gay? Castiel had long suspected that his mother and father’s statements about homosexuality were narrow-minded at best, but he’d certainly never met a gay person, and he suddenly wanted to ask Gabriel all kinds of questions. Was Steven everything his mother had told him gay men were, or was he, as Castiel suspected, just another person?

Within a week, Gabriel had sent a book by Truman Capote, though the outside dust jacket was for a completely different book. It was followed by The Price of Salt, then Middlesex, and a poem called Howl. The Normal Heart broke Castiel’s heart and mended it, and the photographs in Matthew Riemer and Leighton Brown’s We Are Everywhere both shocked and soothed him. Gabriel sent him a veritable library of books, all with their covers obscured by dust jackets that his mother would approve. He sent books on religion, on science, and most recently about evolution, which he was reading when Daphne arrived.

“Your mother told us that you’ll be going to study to become a pastor when you graduate.”

Ah. “Yes, that is what my mother would like,” though Castiel has other plans.

“Not what you would like?” Daphne is sharp. But Castiel can’t trust her with his plans. He doesn’t know her. What if she tells her family?

“It will make them happy for me to go to study Christianity, certainly. They’d like me to become a pastor.”

“Where have you applied?”

“I applied at several but was accepted into Brigham Young, Liberty University, and Bob Jones, as well as Dallas Christian.”

“Where will you go?”

Castiel doesn’t like lying, but he’s going to have to in order to keep the ruse. Hidden in his desk are an acceptance letter and a scholarship offer from San Francisco State University, near where Gabriel is attending culinary school. Castiel would very much prefer to study something far removed from the church. The more he’s educated himself away from St. Joseph’s the more he is finding it difficult to tolerate the conservative views of his family.

He’s especially finding it difficult because he’s come to the conclusion that he himself is gay.

He had sent his confirmation of attendance to SFSU the week before. He’s been sending some belongings to Gabriel in preparation to leave (mostly books), assuming that he won’t have much support from his parents.

“I haven’t decided yet. How about your own education? Will you be attending college in the fall?” It’s currently the end of April, just barely warm enough to be sitting outside without a jacket. School finishes for seniors in two weeks, when their exams are completed.

“Oh, no. I’m going to be a senior in the fall at Sacred Heart Girl’s Academy.”

“Castiel? Daphne?” His mother’s voice calls from inside the house, “it’s time for dinner. Come inside now.”

________________________

Dinner is fine. There’s a polite conversation about the meal. An appropriately small amount of wine is drunk. There’s a discussion of politics where everyone agrees that things were much better when they had a proper, god-fearing president. 

The Allens leave by 7:00, and Castiel clears the table with his mother.

“What did you think of Daphne?” His mother asks while she’s putting away leftovers. Castiel is ferrying dishes from the dining room to the kitchen to be washed.

“She was very polite.”

“Did you think she was pretty?”

“Yes, mother,” Castiel answers absently, knowing the correct answer.

“Good.”

“Good?”

“We believe it would be appropriate for you and Daphne to begin dating this summer.”

Castiel nearly drops the gravy boat he’s holding. “Excuse me?”

“You and Daphne will become a couple this summer. If all goes well, you can be engaged by the time you’re finished with your Pastoral Program,” she doesn’t seem to notice that Castiel has frozen in place, because she’s still talking. “...and I spoke to the admissions counselor at Liberty University, Castiel, she hasn’t received your confirmation yet, even though I know I told you to put it in the mail last week.”

“Mother--”

“I think we’re going to have to send it with a confirmation number again because goodness knows you can’t trust--”

“Mother!”

“Castiel James, I am speaking, and it is rude to interrupt!”

“I know that mother, but this can’t wait. I just--,” Castiel steels himself, “I won’t be attending Liberty University in the fall.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Charles, come in here and speak to your son, please!”

Castiel’s father enters the room, carrying the last remains of their dinner.

“Castiel says he won’t be going to college in the fall!”

“I didn’t--”

“What’s this? Castiel, of course, you will--”

“I didn’t say I won’t be going to college,” Castiel attempts to clarify, his eyes flickering back and forth between his parents, “I’m going to be attending San Francisco State University. They have a highly ranked biological program, which is what I will be majoring in. I won’t be attending a pastoral program.”

Castiel’s mother bursts into tears, which he feels is a bit of an overreaction.

“Now, now, Naomi, I’m sure Castiel didn’t mean--”

“That’s not all, actually,” Castiel takes a deep breath and lets it out again. You got this, Cassie, he remembers Gabriel saying. Be clear and concise, “I’m gay.”

The sudden silence is deafening, but Castiel cannot look away from his parents.

“No, Castiel. No. You’re not-- you’re not gay, you’re confused--”

“I’m not confused, Mother. I’m gay and I’m going to study biology in California.”

His mother is shaking her head, apparently in denial of the simple facts he’s given her. “I can’t accept that, Castiel.”

He was afraid of this. “Then I’m afraid you can’t accept me.”

“Wait,” his father interrupts, “Castiel, we can get you help, there are places that will help people like you--”

“Father, this isn’t a problem. My homosexuality isn’t a problem to be solved! I’ll be leaving as soon as I can for California after I finish school next month.”

And with that statement, Castiel leaves the room and heads up to his bedroom, where he closes the door and leans his forehead against the cool wood. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and calls his brother.

“Cassie! What’s up?”

“I came out to mother and father,” he feels strangely numb about the whole thing, actually. It hasn’t quite sunk in, yet.

“You told them you’re gay?”

“And that I’m going to SFSU in the fall.”

“Woof. How’d they take it?”

“Mother is crying, Father wants to send me to conversion therapy.”

“What the fuck,” Gabriel sounds resigned, “you know I won’t let them send you away, right?”

“Mmm.”

“A little ahead of schedule, though.”

“They attempted to set me up with the daughter of another family. I couldn’t do that to her.”

“You couldn't just go on the date?”

“The words ‘engaged after pastoral school’ were mentioned.”

“Holy shit.”

“Indeed.” a pause, then, “Do you think they’re going to kick me out?”

“If they do, you know what you’re going to do?”

“No.”

“You’re going to use the money Aunt Amara left you and rent a cheap motel room for the next few weeks. You’re going to finish high school, graduate, and then you’re going to move out here and stay with me until school starts. I have most of your shit that couldn’t be packed anyway, right?”

“Yes. I still have four or five books here, but everything else I’ve sent to you.”

“Good. You good, little bro?”

“I’m not sure yet,” he might be starting to feel a little scared, if he’s honest with himself. There’s a very real possibility that he will be homeless tonight, with the knowledge that his parents don’t love him enough to accept him. “It helps to have a plan.”

“Make sure you have my number memorized in case they take your phone.”

A knock on his door. 

“Gabriel, I have to go,” his voice has started to shake a bit, and he clears his throat to get it under control.

“Keep me updated. Love you, kiddo.”

“I will. And you too.”

Castiel hangs up. “Come in,”

His father stands in the doorway, looking grave. “We’ve come to a decision, Castiel.”

Castiel nods. He feels his hands trembling. Even if they decide to kick him out, they’re still his parents. They’re supposed to love him, no matter what. He supposes that talking out every possible outcome with Gabriel in the last few months has helped him deal with the emotional fallout from his declarations, but the anxiety of waiting for the response of his parents is difficult to handle.

“We’ve decided that you may continue to live with us for the remainder of the school year, so long as you agree to meet with Pastor Zachariah three times per week. If your decision to disobey your family and go against our wishes continues after you graduate from high school, you will no longer be welcome in our home. You will be home every night for dinner unless you are with the Pastor. You will not go out with friends. Are we clear?”

“Why do you want me to meet with the Pastor?”

“You’re confused. You need to talk to someone.”

“I talk to people.”

“You need to talk to the right people.”

“Someone who you think can talk me out of being who I am.”

“This is not who you are, Castiel!” his father is close to shouting at him, which has almost never happened before, “you will not embarrass the family like this! It was bad enough that Gabriel went off to cook, but at least he’s not a-- a-- homosexual!”

“So if I agree to simply meet with the pastor, you will allow me to continue living here?”

“Yes. I’m sure you’ll see the error of your ways.”

Castiel is sure he won’t, but meeting with Zachariah has to be better than being homeless.

________________________

It’s not better than being homeless.

Zachariah opened each of their “sessions” with a prayer. For Castiel to forget his sinful ways, for him to come back to the path of light, and for him to stop his hateful scientific research.

“What makes it hateful?”

“It goes directly against the teaching of the Bible, Castiel. God created the Earth, and man, and all living things.”

“Why could he not have created these things and allowed them to evolve?”

“Because that wouldn’t work, Castiel.”

“What about the dinosaurs?”

Zachariah scoffs, “dinosaurs. If they even existed at all, they must’ve existed alongside man.”

“There’s no evidence of that. In fact, The evidence suggests that dinosaurs lived 65 million years ago, which--”

“The Earth is only 6,000 years old.”

Castiel can do nothing but gape at him.

Sessions with Zachariah are frustrating at best, and traumatic at worst. During some sessions, the pastor shouts at him. During others, Zachariah attempted to guide him towards what he called an original “wounding”--sexual abuse that he had not experienced. His parents forced him to fast for days, to prepare for deliverance, which failed but left Castiel feeling weak and sick. 

Gabriel insists on speaking to him after every single session. Castiel is quiet much of the time.

It’s not a hardship for Castiel to not go out with friends, as he isn’t close with any of his schoolmates. Dinner at home is akin to torture, as it’s nearly silent before, during, and after the meal, and his mother’s grief seems to fill the house. Castiel attempts to muscle through it, but it’s becoming more difficult. He’s never been a disappointment to his parents, and between the silent treatment he receives and the sessions with the pastor, he’s never felt so sick with anxiety in all his life.

“You can do this, Cassie. One more week. Do you have everything packed?”

“Yes, and I have my train ticket. It leaves at midnight after graduation.” He’s silent for a moment, looking around the bedroom he’s slept in for his entire life. “What if I can’t do it? What if they’re right about me?”

“They’re not, Cassie. You can do anything. And I’ll be here with you, we can figure it out.”

Castiel takes a shuddering breath and agrees.

________________________

Castiel attends his high school graduation in order to pick up his diploma. His parents attend with forced smiles for those around him. They take stiff photographs.

When they get home, Castiel takes a shower. He tidies his room and packs his final essentials. He sits on his bed, and breathes.

This might be the last time he’s ever in this room. This could be the last time he’ll be in the same building with his parents. This might be the last time they let him call them mother and father. He closes his eyes and tries to remember the good feelings he’s had in this home. Times when he was happy, times when things didn’t feel so heavy. He knows he’s always been serious, even as a young child, but he knows that his childhood was essentially happy. And safe. And he’s about to throw a bomb on that.

With a deep breath and a last look, Castiel picks up his bag.

Downstairs, his mother and father sit at the dining room table. They look up at his entrance, and their faces fall when their eyes land on the bag in his hands. His mother’s face quickly turns to anger, and she shakes her head on her way out of the room. His father stares stonily at him.

“I’m leaving,” he says, unnecessarily, simply to fill the silence.

“I’m sorry you weren’t able to find your way back.”

“Father, I am who I’ve always been.”

“No, you’re not. You’re not my son.”

Castiel swallows back his tears and doesn’t respond. He walks out the door, and out of their lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Referenced books:
> 
> Other Voices, Other Rooms, by Truman Capote  
The Price of Salt, by Patricia Highsmith  
Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides  
Howl, by Allen Ginsberg  
The Normal Heart, by Larry Kramer
> 
> Castiel’s brief experience with failed conversion therapy is largely from this man’s experience: https://time.com/2986440/sexual-conversion-therapy-gay/


	6. ignition.

Six months later, Dean is entrenched in coursework at SFSU. It’s… different. 

_If Sam could see me now,_ he thinks to himself. A college student. That was always Sam’s dream. Dean didn’t even think it would be possible for him, but at 26 years old, after spending three and a half years driving the country in his van, he’s at college. Fucking _college. _And he’s doing well. Last semester he got a 3.67 grade point average, and this semester he’s well on his way to a 4.0 (he doesn’t have to take organic chemistry this semester, which is a damn blessing.).

Sam doesn’t even know. And Dean told Bobby not to tell him if he called. Dean checks in with him via text occasionally, but he rarely receives more than “yeah, I’m good” from his brother. Sam only voluntarily texts him at Christmas and Dean’s birthday, and gives perfunctory responses the rest of the time. Very rarely, they will talk on the phone. He’s 40 minutes from his brother, and he’s too chicken to tell him so.

Of course, Sam also thinks Dean is still following their Dad around. Dean lets him think that, but he hasn’t heard from his dad since he was kicked out. Every once in a while, when Dean can get him on the phone (he sends Sam money, whether he wants it or not), Sam will ask what Dean and Dad have been up to, and Dean’s response is always the same. _“Same old, same old,” he tells Sam, “Now tell me about this girl,”_ and Sam will ramble on about the pretty girl in one of his classes until he remembers that he’s mad at John, and by extension, Dean.

_It’s gone on too long now_, Dean thinks. How on earth does he tell his brother after all this time? _“Oh, yeah. I haven’t heard from Dad in _five_ years, how about you?” _Dean can already see the face Sam would make after he finished yelling at Dean about how no one ever tells him anything. He still remembers the argument about moving when Sam was 15 and had to leave his first girlfriend. Sam had been livid, But Dean and John saw the news about the fire at the church and knew it was time to go.

_“Not everything is about you, Sam!”_

_“Then why can’t I know?”_

_“Because people are allowed to have secrets, dammit!”_

_“We never used to have secrets.”_

_“We never used have to put up with your ugly face, but then you were born. Things change. Deal with it.”_

_“Dean, you know what I’m saying here. Dad told you why we’re leaving, didn’t he.” It’s not a question. They both know Dean knows why._

_“Yeah, I do. But for once in your life, can you just shut the fuck up? We have to leave.”_

God, that had sucked. Sam had left three years later for school, and the arguments leading up to that last big one had often been about Sam being pissed that no one ever told him anything. Dean still can’t believe that for a kid as smart as him, he never saw the fires following Dean around.

These days, Dean is exhausted. Working 40 hours a week while carrying a full course load is nothing short of masochistic. Dean rarely sleeps more than four hours a night, with only one day a week scheduled with a ten-hour sleeping block. He moves his van every three nights and does his best to make it a random pattern. 

Benny, the owner of the 24-hour cafe that he works most of his hours at lets him park his van in the alleyway behind the cafe when he works long shifts so that he can pass out as soon as possible, which Dean appreciates. 

He works some hours on the weekends for Bobby, too (who hounds him about sleeping and eating enough). He works a few hours here and there for Ellen at her bar, the Roadhouse, as well, but mostly on the weekends when he’s in that direction working for Bobby. Dean’s doing fine. The fires haven’t found him in so long, he feels free. Not free enough to rent an apartment without worry, but free.

The rest of the time that Dean isn’t sleeping, doing schoolwork, or working his regular jobs, Dean is finding money in other ways. Sometimes he does yard work. That’s the kind of work he likes the best. It’s under the table pay, and it feels nice to make something look nice again. He doesn’t mind hustling pool, but he tries not to do it too much. Sometimes there’s a fight, and since he lives in this city it’s harder to make his getaway like he used to.

Then there’s the other way. The way Dean only looks for when he’s really desperate. Men in seedy bars and dark alleyways, paying for the pleasure of using him. It makes Dean feel disgusting and used up, but it’s a reliable source of income. There are always people willing to pay for sex. Just before the semester started, one of his regulars got a group of his buddies together, and they used Dean for the whole night. But they paid Dean five thousand dollars, and that’s the kind of money that he can’t turn down. 

Gotta pay for school somehow.

On the way into work, Dean texts Charlie when he can, and she tells him about how much she hates her job, and that she’s thinking about quitting. She’s thinking about moving up to San Francisco.

  
**Dean:** Don’t you have friends in LA  
**Charlie:** Bitch, I have friends everywhere  
**Charlie:** But I’m sick of LA  
**Charlie:** It’s always so hot here, and it’s so full of people  
**Dean:** There’s a lot of people here, too  
**Charlie:** Duh! Better people though. I like being surrounded by queers, and guess what SF has a lot of?  
**Dean: **Hills?  
**Charlie:** Do you not wANT ME THERE  


Dean rolls his eyes fondly at her message. He can practically hear her mock offense through the words.

  
**Dean:** I just don’t want you to move just for me  
**Charlie:** well tbh, it’s mostly for me. Gotta get out of this desert hellscape  
**Charlie:** You’re a pleasant bonus  
**Dean:** Fair enough. Lmk when you decide  
**Charlie:** You got it. You logging in tonight?  
**Dean:** Working  
**Charlie:** You’re always working!  
**Dean:** And?

Dean hefts his bag higher onto his shoulder, grinning at Charlie’s antics, and heads into Recoult to start his 8 PM to 8 AM shift for Benny. He holds the door open for a couple of customers, then ducks into the back to grab his apron. Benny is working the grill, which means that Gabriel won’t be in tonight, and that makes Dean breathe a sigh of relief. He likes Gabe just fine, and he’s a damn good cook, but Gabriel is annoyingly perceptive. He likes to ask Dean a lot of questions that Dean does not want to answer, and nags him when Dean is trying to study behind the counter, while Benny just lets him do his thing, even if Dean sometimes catches him watching his employee with a little more concern than is necessary.

Dean is _fine._

“Hey, brother.”

“Hey, Benny. How’s everything tonight?”

“Lookin’ good. Cole just took off, but I need to run down to the butcher and get more meat for the charcuterie board before they close. You good here for 20 minutes or so?”

“Yeah, I’m good. Charcuterie is a hot seller today, huh?”

“It’s that new honeycomb I’ve got, I swear. The goat cheese has never tasted so good.”

Dean laughs. He likes the way Benny is about food-- like it’s more important than just the fuel that keeps you moving. To Benny, food is an experience.

“I’ll hold down the fort. The dinner rush should be over, anyway.”

“Great. Be back as soon as I can.”

“No problem.”

Dean pulls his textbook of the night (Endocrinology) over to the counter with him, and reads in between serving customers. Most people are after simple snacks that are already made up, along with coffee or beer and wine, and he only has to tell one person that the chef will be back in a few minutes, if he doesn’t mind waiting. Fortunately, he doesn’t mind taking his red wine and waiting, as long as he’s first in line when Benny comes back.

The bell dings for another customer, and Dean looks up to see a shock of dark, messy hair, under which, bright blue eyes look at the menu as he walks up to the counter.

“Hi, welcome to Recoult. Can I help you?” Dean uses his best Customer Service Voice. It’s practically patented, a mix of flirty, innocent, and earnest that gets him excellent tips at the bar when Ellen needs the help.

Dark hair-Blue eyes looks up, and Dean is somewhat caught in the stare, only realizing a second later that he had asked a question.

“Sorry. What did you say?”

“I asked where you sourced your honey. Is it local?”

“Oh, yeah. Do you know Beekind? They work out of the bay area. I know we just got a new honeycomb in that people are really into. I haven’t tried it yet, but Benny says it makes the goat cheese better than ever.”

“You haven’t tried it?” The man tilts his head questioningly.

“I’ve only been on my shift for ten minutes. And it’s new like, today. Did you want to try it?”

“Yes. I’d like the charcuterie board and a glass of white wine, please.”

“Oh, do you mind waiting? It’s just that apparently everyone and their sister wanted the charcuterie today, so Benny is out getting more supplies over at the butcher. He should be back in a few minutes. I can get you your wine, though.”

“That would be fine.”

“Great! Did you have a white wine you preferred? And would you like some popcorn or anything while you wait?”

“Popcorn would be excellent. And a chardonnay, please.” 

“Coming right up.”

While Dean prepares his order, the guy must have spotted his thick textbook laying on the counter near the register.

“What is it you’re studying?”

“Uh, that one is Endocrinology. My professor likes to do these quizzes randomly to keep us on our toes, and I’ve got class tomorrow.”

“Is that Professor Roman, by any chance?”

“Yeah. You know him?” Dean sets the glass of wine on a cocktail napkin in front of Blue Eyes, and turns to get his popcorn.

“Yes. He taught my Introduction to Biology course back when I was a freshman. I’m well-versed in his ‘surprise’ quizzes,” the guy actually uses air quotes. Adorable

_Shit_, Dean thought. _No._ Guys aren’t adorable. _Lock it up, Dean._ The guy continues.

“Endocrinology isn’t one of the lower-level courses. What’s your major?”

“Biology, concentrating in physiology.”

“Ah, I did microbiology. I’m currently working on my doctorate.”

“A fellow Biologist. I’m Dean, nice to meet you,” he sticks out his hand, and the guy looks down at it. When he grasps Dean’s hand, it’s somewhat hesitant.

“Castiel.”

The door opens again, and Benny comes in, carrying two bags.

“I have the meats!” he crows as he strides into the little cafe.

“Just in time, too,” Dean informs him. “We got two tables waiting for your charcuterie, dude.”

“Castiel!” Benny booms, greeting the other man.

“Good evening, Benny.”

“Don’t usually see you here in the evenings,” he turns to inform Dean “Castiel here is usually one of our morning customers. He’s addicted to espresso.”

“Espresso is a necessity of life, Benny.”

“Sure is, cher. Gotta get back there. Meats to slice and all that. See you later, Castiel.”

“Bye Benny.”

“Espresso, huh?”

“I require a great deal of caffeine to keep me awake during my duties as a graduate assistant during Intro to Biology I.”

“I bet.” Most kids taking that class are using it as a science requirement, and have little to no interest in the subject. That’s gotta be tedious. “Well, sorry to keep you chatting. Enjoy your wine, and I’ll bring you your food when it’s ready.”

“No apology needed, Dean. It was wonderful to meet you.”

“You too, Cas.”

As Castiel walks away, Dean can’t help but notice how well his pants fit around his ass. Then he hears his dad’s voice echo through his head. _No son of mine’s a cocksucker._ Dean scowls internally at the thought.

_Well, Dad. You didn’t want me anyway. _

Dean has lately been dipping his toe into the waters of his bisexuality, but he’s never really acted on it (paid encounters aside), and he has _never_ talked about it. Not even with Charlie, who would be nothing but supportive, given that she’s a gold star lesbian. He’s always dated girls, but lately, he’s been craving something different.

He likes girls. He likes their curves, how soft they can be. He loves their wetness when they’re aroused and ready for him. He likes the way they taste, and he likes the way their hair feels when he’s holding onto it during a blowjob. He’s usually stronger than them, so he can lift them and move them how he wants when they’re together. They make him feel strong. Women are soft, and pretty, and he loves them.

But _men_. Dean also likes men. He likes the hard edges, the way he isn’t stronger than all of them. He likes that maybe they can hold him down and _take_. It turns out that men can be soft, too, and still be, well. Men. He likes the way they look interested in him, that soft smile that can be a little predatory. He likes men that he doesn’t meet in dark alleyways, and men that don’t pay him to go down on his knees. Men can be great.

Not that Dean has a whole lot of time for dating lately. And frankly, he hasn’t been interested. It’s been some time since he had sex with someone for nothing but the pure pleasure of it. But Castiel interests him.

________________________

Dean keeps seeing Castiel. Like once he laid eyes on him for the first time, he couldn’t stop finding him in the crowd.

Dean sees him next at the Roadhouse. They talked for a moment, but it was a Saturday night. The bar was busy.

He sees him after that in the lecture hall where Dean has Endocrinology. It turns out that the class Castiel is assisting is directly before Dean’s, and so there’s a 30-minute window where they can talk every single Thursday.

And they do.

Dean learns that Castiel wants to be a researcher. He’s happiest in a lab, though his parents wanted him to join the clergy. 

“I think they were horrified to learn that not only had I chosen not to go to a Christian university to study the Bible and Theology, but I had also chosen to study biology, and learned about the evolution of organisms. When I told them I was gay, that was the very last straw.”

“You’re gay?”

Cas raises an eyebrow. “Is that a problem?”

“No, man.” And this is where Dean would usually make it clear that he’s a Straight Man, that he only fucks women (unless he’s being paid, and that doesn’t count. And he doesn’t _tell people about that_). But instead, he simply shrugs, “my best friend is a lesbian. She’d kick my ass if I ditched someone because they’re gay. And man, she’s tiny, but terrifying.”

Cas laughs, and Dean loves that sound. When Cas laughs, like, really laughs, he smiles so big, and it lights up the whole fucking world. Dean’s whole body feels warm, just listening to that laugh, and he knows he’s not supposed to feel this way. Being gay is all well and good for men like Cas, and women like Charlie, but it’s confusing for Dean. He’s attracted to some men, but he’s attracted to women too. No matter what kind of experience he’s been wanting lately, he’s pretty sure it's just easier to stick to girls. His dad spent a considerable amount of time telling Dean why it was not for him, anyway. He pushes the feeling down again and decides to think about that later.

“So I told you what I’m studying. What about you? Endocrinology is just that thrilling?”

Dean chuckles, “Well, it’s not the worst class I’ve taken. But, no. I wanted to get a bachelor’s in something that would help me out in the future.”

“And what is it helping you do?”

“I want to be a paramedic. But I want to be a critical care paramedic, so I want to know as much as I can about the human body, and how it works,” he hesitates a little bit. He hasn’t told anyone else that he wants to be a CCP, and he’s not sure what kind of reaction he’s looking for. Cas’ head tilt and scrutinizing stare are sort of a mixed bag. “I know it’s not as important as being a doctor--”

“It’s very important. Someone has to keep people alive so they can even make it to the doctor.”

Dean knows that, but he still worries. “Yeah, but that’s what people will say, right? That I couldn’t hack it at being a doctor? It’s taking the lazy way--”

“It’s an admirable goal. There is _nothing_ lazy about being a paramedic, especially such a highly trained one. People who say things like that are greatly misinformed and not worth your time. Don’t let anyone tell you it’s less important. Some things are not comparable, Dean, and occupations are one of them. Is a doctor more important than a sanitation worker?”

“I guess no one’s ever put it like that before.”

He doesn’t tell Cas the other reason he wants to be a paramedic, which is that it will finally give Dean a way to make himself worth something. Once Sam left, Dean lost his purpose, and he’s just trying to get it back.

________________________

By the end of the semester, Dean and Cas are regularly meeting up whenever they can. Castiel often will study at the cafe with Dean, or keep him company at the bar, often with a textbook or his tablet propped open in front of him. He helps Dean study often and sometimes chides him for not taking better care of himself.

Once, he sees a bruise that a man he was ‘servicing’ left when Dean had to stop the guy from going further than he paid for. The guy had caught Dean high on his right cheekbone and left a faint bruise. Cas is concerned for days and glowers whenever he spots the mark on Dean’s cheek. Dean laughs it off, joking that Cas is only worried that Dean will break his beautiful face, and then what would be left? Cas is less amused.

“You are worth more than your face.”

“Cas, it was just a joke.”

“It wasn’t funny. Dean, it troubles me when you put yourself down like that.”

Dean rolls his eyes, because what else could he do? Cas hasn’t figured out yet that there really isn’t much else to Dean, besides his pretty face and his shitty past. Dean wants to hold onto this friendship for as long as possible, he’s determined not to screw it up. Cas will get tired of Dean eventually, just like everyone else.

Dean sometimes feels bad about that. He knows that Cas sees him as someone who’s a hard worker, and more than once he’s mentioned how impressed he is that Dean goes to school and works, both full time. Dean feels like he’s lying to Castiel by letting him believe Dean has his life together. He doesn’t even live in a home, for God’s sake. As for how he’s passing his classes, Dean has no idea, because he’s sure at this point he knows less about biology than he did when he started. Cas has this idea that Dean is generous when Dean knows he’s anything but. Cas thinks Dean is sturdy and reliable. Dean’s a house of cards.

Dean is going to let Cas down, and he’s dreading that day.

Despite his gut telling him to leave Cas alone, Dean finds himself at Castiel’s small campus apartment often, cooking dinner for the both of them before they study, or walking by to pick up Cas on the way to the library. Sometimes he crashes on the couch if he has to be awake in a few hours. He hasn’t told Cas about his van yet, and he’s avoiding it as long as possible. Cas is going to think he’s some kind of crazy person when he hears about it. Who lives in a van?

He knows that Cas doesn’t like that he sleeps on the couch sometimes, and sometimes Cas convinces him to share his bed. He reasons with Dean that the couch isn’t really long enough for Dean’s whole body to fit on it anyway, and the bed is big enough. Strictly platonic, of course, Dean tells himself. Cas isn’t interested in him that way, and besides, he’s not interested in Cas that way either. 

Cas is also always trying to get Dean to eat more, sleep more, _rest_ more, but the truth is Dean doesn’t have time. He often forgets to eat meals, chowing down on a granola bar or simply drinking another cup of coffee, and sleep is a luxury that he doesn’t always allow himself.

Five Hour Energy shots are his best friend. Cas frowns every time he catches sight of one in Dean’s vicinity.

“Those aren't healthy.”

“They keep me going, Cas.” Dean bounces on his heels a bit as he throws back the last of the shot.

“Sleep would keep you going, too,” Cas frowns even more at him. “As would more food. You’re going to make yourself sick.”

“I’m fine, Cas. Stop worrying. Now, will you please explain to me what the fuck is happening in this section of chapter eight? I know you took this course at some point, and this is just not working in my brain for me.”

He knows Castiel wants to lecture him more about sleep, but talking about cellular biology always works. And this section really is giving Dean a headache.

The semester continues, and the two men buckle down to study together, almost like they’ve found themselves a small study group. Cas brings his books and laptop to Recoult, the bar, and the library, and sometimes Dean meets him at his apartment and they quiz each other.

Finals arrive in a swirl of chaos and frantic testing energy, and Dean spends a lot of time being quizzed by Cas. On one of the breaks that Castiel insists upon (“you _have _to rest your brain sometimes! Did you learn _nothing_ in neurobiology?) Dean asks Cas about his plans for the holiday.

“I will probably have dinner with my brother on Christmas, but otherwise I’ll simply be at home.”

“How come I haven’t met this brother yet?”

“Dean, you know my brother.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Gabriel is my brother, Dean.”

“Wait, _Gabe_ is your brother? The annoying chef at the cafe that never minds his own business? That Gabriel?”

“Yes, that is one of his personality quirks, I’m afraid. I didn’t realize that you weren’t aware of our connection.”

“Well, now I feel dumb. But hey! You should come to Bobby’s for Christmas. We always have too much food and drink too much. It’s a tradition.”

“I wouldn’t want to intrude on your traditions.”

“You wouldn’t be, I invited you. You’re coming over, end of discussion.”

“Alright. What can I bring?”

“Don’t cook anything.”

“I’m perfectly capable of following a recipe,” Cas starts testily. Truthfully, Cas is the worst cook in the world, and Dean would be happy if the man never touched a stove ever again. It’s like he’s never heard of seasonings, and he has no idea how long to cook foods. Dean’s surprised he’s lived this long since the only thing he can relatively successfully do is heat a can of soup and cook (read: burn) a grilled cheese.

“Sure, Chef. How about you bring some booze?” Cas knows what Dean likes to drink by now, and Bobby will drink whatever you give him.

“Fine, yes. I can do that. Are you sure--”

“Cas, we got this handled.”

“Yes, okay. Gabriel mentioned he might go to Kali’s for Christmas anyway, so thank you for inviting me.”

“Dude, he was gonna leave you all alone?”

“I don’t mind.”

“Well, I do! God, Cas, of course you’re coming over. I can’t leave you alone at Christmas!”


	7. interlude: glow.

Charlie sends Dean a text message while he’s laying in his bed, his van parked in the Cabela’s parking lot after filling his freshwater tank for his sink. He immediately feels guilty for not keeping in touch with her more. He’s been busy working. And hanging out with Cas. And with school, obviously. He hasn’t had time to log onto World of Warcraft with Charlie for weeks.

**Charlie: **My dude! Where have you been?  
**Dean: **Sorry. Working.  
**Charlie:** As per usual. Boring.gif, bro.  
**Dean:** Don’t call me bro.  
**Dean:** Actually I’ve been hanging out a lot with Cas  
**Charlie:** Who’s this Cas person?  
**Dean:** Remember tha Castiel guy I ran into a while back?  
**Charlie**: YES the hottie?  
**Dean:** I didn’t say he was hot  
**Charlie:** you talked for like an hour about his eyes  
**Dean:** shut up  
**Charlie:** You loooooooooove him

What the hell? He doesn’t talk about him that much. He scrolls up through his text messages with Charlie, and what do you know? Apparently, he does talk about Cas a lot. That doesn’t mean anything, though. He responds.

**Dean:** No I don’t  
**Dean: **Not gay  
**Dean:** Remember?  
**Charlie:** Dean. Everyone’s a little gay.  
**Charlie:** You’re a little gay  
**Dean:** headshake.gif  
**Charlie:** You’re in love with Harrison Ford  
**Charlie:** And Ryan Reynolds.  
**Charlie:** And Hugh Jackman.  
**Charlie:** And you love Doctor Sexy which is like the gayest thing in the world  
**Dean:** I like women, Charles.  
**Charlie:** You can like women? And men? At the same time?

Nope, Dean doesn’t want to touch that. He knows that bisexuality is a thing, objectively, and he knows that what he calls himself privately. But he also knows that people generally think bisexuality is fake. He likes women, so he should just… date women.

**Charlie:** Hello?  
**Charlie:** Dean it’s been like 20 minutes are you freaking out  
**Dean:** No  
**Charlie:** Yes you are  
**Dean:** Okay yes I am  
**Charlie: **I’m calling you.

Dean’s phone rings, and he answers.

“What.”

“Ooh, Mr. Grouchy Pants.”

“Charlie, it’s 11 PM.”

“You can be Mr. Grouchy Pants anytime. Besides, you’re not 100. This isn’t even that late”

He groans, and rolls over onto his stomach, putting his phone on speaker so that he doesn’t have to hold it up to his ear.

“So. Cas...” Charlie prompts him.

“What about him?”

“How are you feeling about him?”

“I dunno.” Dean shrugs. “He’s a friend.”

“Yeah?”

“Yep.”

“It’s okay if you like him, dude.”

“I’m not homophobic.”

“Uh, duh. You’re friends with my gay ass. Do you like him?”

“Charlie…”

“Do you?”

“I dunno.”

“So, yes.”

“I’m not gay.”

“Obviously.”

“I like women.”

“Girl, same. But like I said, you don’t have to like _only_ women. This is not an either/or situation. Don’t come at me with that bisexual erasure crap.”

“Uh, what? And don’t call me ‘girl’.”

Charlie ignores his protest. “You know. How like, people are all ‘bisexuals aren’t real’, ‘why can’t you just pick one?’”

“Well? Why _can’t _I just pick one? It’s weird.”

“Dean.” Charlie sounds like she pities him, which Dean hates.

“_What?_”

“I know your dad sucks, and he probably bad-mouthed every gay kid he ever came across,”

“I’m not my dad--”

“I know. But that feels like shit, knowing that your dad would be angry about it.”

Dean feels hot tears gather in the corners of his eyes, and doesn’t say anything for a minute.

“Dean? You still there?”

“M’still here,” he mumbles.

“Okay. I’m just saying, from what you told me about Sam, he’s not going to hate you. And San Francisco is like the most queer friendly city in America.”

“I feel really dumb right now. I fucking hate talking about feelings.”

“I know, it’s so unfortunate not being a robot.”

“My dad caught me looking at gay porn once.”

“Wowza.”

“Tell me about it. He basically kicked my ass and then told me that I needed to toughen up. When I told him I still like girls, he was all ‘just like girls then, Dean, Jesus Christ. You’re not a fag,’”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. I forgot about that until just now.”

“The more I hear about your dad the more I hate him.”

“Huh. Me too. But. He’s still my dad. Can’t choose your family.”

“Dude, of _course_ you can choose your family.”


	8. blaze.

Castiel has always been curious about where Dean actually lives. Dean always brushes off his queries, usually by saying that it‘s too small to have anyone over, that it’s nothing special, and then distracts him with a story about something that happened at work, or an interesting thing they talked about in class. One time, Dean distracted him simply by moving a crate of wine onto a higher shelf.

Castiel might be a tiny bit in love with Dean Winchester. The man is too kind and hardworking for his own good. He helps other students in his classes, he delivers the day-old bread from Recoult personally to the homeless that make their temporary homes nearby. Dean works three jobs during the week, and Castiel knows that he also does some landscaping and yard work when he can find it. “Any time I can get paid under the table,” Dean jokes, “that’s where the real money is!” 

Castiel can’t even fathom it. Even when he was essentially disowned from his mother and father, he had a small trust to fall back on and an inheritance from an aunt who was mean to everyone but liked Castiel for some reason. Dean is intelligent, he earns good grades, and he is passionate about music, and helping people, and making sure that every move he makes is fair and right. Dean is righteous, and he doesn’t even know it.

All of these things and more, and Castiel doesn’t think Dean sees himself very clearly at all. The few things Castiel has heard about Dean’s father give him the impression that John Winchester isn’t a very pleasant man, emotionally abusive if not physically (and Castiel isn’t sure he believes Dean on that count), and even with how much Dean likes to brag about his brother Sam, Castiel doesn’t think Dean has seen him in a very long time. Dean deflects just about every question that digs deeper on the subject, and Dean constantly puts himself down. The man does _not_ take compliments gracefully, and it makes something inside Castiel twist painfully every time Dean bats a positive comment about himself aside. 

Castiel might be a lot in love with Dean Winchester. 

He sees Dean nearly every day, either at school or at one of Dean’s various jobs, and all too often Dean is sporting a new bruise, scrape, cut, or other type of injurious mark that Castiel can’t bear to see on his skin, and he can’t figure out from where they could possibly be coming from. 

“Dean, is that… that looks like a handprint.”

“What does?”

“The bruise on your arm, just there--” Castiel reaches across the small counter where the stools sit at Recoult to reach Dean where he’s scratching at a stubborn piece of food stuck to the counter and gently brushes the patch of skin he’s talking about, just underneath the rolled-up sleeve of his flannel.

It looks new. It’s still a little bit red, turning a deeper purple further to the center. Someone would have to squeeze awfully hard to leave a bruise like that. Dean yanks his arm away. 

“It’s nothing, Cas,” and Dean rolls his sleeve down over the top of the bruise. 

“It doesn’t look like nothing.”

“Well, it is.” Dean finishes wiping up the counter and goes into the back. When he comes back out, his sleeves are both rolled down and buttoned, and he’s holding three bottles of white wine. They don’t talk for a few moments, Castiel watching as Dean performs various tasks behind the counter that seems to intentionally keep him away from the bar stools. He puts the wines in the fridge behind the bar, wipes down the various little puddles of water that linger on the counter, and arranges the different glasses.

He performs a dozen of these little tasks, and then comes back towards Castiel. 

“What happened?”

Dean is avoiding his gaze, “I had to refill the fridge.”

Castiel rolls his eyes. “With the _bruise_.”

“Which one?”

“Dean--”

“Alright, alright, I’m being an asshole. Played pool the other night. The guy didn’t like that I won, and grabbed my arm something fierce. But it’s fine, Cas. no harm done,” Dean spreads his arms wide with a big grin, “still in fighting form.”

That grin looks like a mask, but Cas stays silent. That’s not the only time Dean has shown up with bumps and bruises. What looked like a punch to the cheek split open the skin and left a small cut (Dean said it was from walking into a door. Very uncreative.) left Castiel giving the injury dark looks every time he caught sight of it (Dean deflected Castiel’s concern with a joke about ‘ruining his pretty face’ and it made him even more angry that Dean might think so little of himself, that he might think that’s all Castiel sees in him). Castiel is sure that last Sunday while Dean was serving brunch at Recoult he was limping, but Dean said he was imagining things.

The thing is, Castiel doesn’t know where Dean lives. He can’t come up with any reasonable explanations for the injuries. Dean has said that he lives by himself, so it’s not a domestic violence problem. Castiel is certain that Dean doesn’t sell or do drugs, so it can’t be violence from that. He’s just forced to accept Dean’s excuses, and it’s infuriating.

Castiel has tried to talk to him about it, but as always, Dean does his best to distract him.

“Cas, did you see that Beekind sent us some new stuff? It’s redwood forest honeydew or something, really looks dark--” and Castiel is diverted, but he logs the incident in his brain for the list he has of poorly excused injuries he has spotted on Dean. He wishes that he could wipe away each and every mark, and in his mind he gives a gentle kiss to the hand-shaped bruise on his arm and allows Dean to change the subject.

________________________

Castiel makes plans with Dean to meet him over at Bobby’s house on Christmas Eve. Dean’s been there since the day before, since Benny’s closed down until the new year, the bar he works at is open over the holiday and closer to where his uncle lives. His uncle Bobby (who isn’t his actual uncle, but more of a close friend of his family’s growing up) owns a salvage yard and auto repair business in Berkeley, which is a 30-minute rideshare from the part of the city Castiel lives in if he times it correctly.

He times it almost correctly. His car arrives at 11:30 AM on Christmas Eve, and it takes 45 minutes (and $25) to get there. Dean has assured him that he’ll give him a ride back.

Castiel didn’t even know that Dean had a car.

When he’s almost there, he sends Dean a text, so that Dean’s waiting for him on the porch with an umbrella. This is the bay area in the winter, so of course-- it’s raining.

“Cas! You’re here!” Dean sounds excited to see him, which makes Castiel smile. Castiel always feels happy to see Dean, so it’s nice to have that happiness returned. “Lemme grab your bag!” And he hands the umbrella off to Castiel so that Dean can carry his bag into the house.

Castiel covers them both with the huge umbrella, thanks his driver, and Dean ushers them in.

“Cas, meet Bobby. Bobby, this is Castiel,” he introduces a man shorter than himself. The man has a beard and a well-worn baseball cap on his head. He’s wearing flannel and jeans, and what looks like a soft pair of moccasin slippers to wear around the house.

“So this is the famous Cas, huh? Dean never shuts up about you,” Bobby is gruff, but Castiel can see kindness in his eyes. From what he’s heard of Bobby from Dean, the man comes across as ornery, but Castiel is not to be fooled (_“the man’s a teddy bear,” Dean had joked, “he’s just grouchy about it. Don’t let him scare you,”_).

“Bobby, shut up,” Dean’s back is to Castiel, but his ears are bright red as he heads into the kitchen, presumably to check on the food that he can smell cooking, which makes Castiel smile.

“That’s me. And you’re Bobby. I’ve heard a lot about you, thank you for allowing me to come for the holiday.”

“Dean said you’d be alone,” Bobby grumbled softly, “that ain’t right. Any friend of his is a friend of mine, and very welcome here. Come, sit down, you want anything to drink?”

“Oh! I brought some things to drink,” he carefully hefts the tote bag off of his shoulder, “I wasn’t sure what you liked, so I got a mixed 6-pack of beer, a couple of bottles of wine, and a bottle of whiskey. I know that’s what Dean prefers, and he said you had similar tastes, so I felt like that was pretty safe.”

“You’d be right, though I wouldn’t be against openin’ one of those bottles of wine over dinner either,” Bobby responds. He calls to Dean, who they can hear making some noise with pots and pans in the kitchen, “Dean! Come take this bag from Castiel and get us some drinks, would’ja? Stop fussing in there, you hear me?”

Castiel smiles widely, and Dean comes out wiping his hands on a towel.

“Yeah, yeah, old man, I hear you. Someone’s gotta do the dishes around here. Here, I’ll take that, Cas.”

Castiel is more than willing to wash dishes if it means he gets to stand side by side with Dean. “No, I’ll help.”

“Nah, go sit down, take a load off. I’m almost done. I’ll bring you guys something in a second when I come sit down.”

“Are you sure?”

“Uh, yeah? You think I can’t handle three glasses now, Cas? Which one of us works in a bar and a cafe, huh?”

Castiel acquiesces and joins Bobby in the living room.

“So, Cas. Dean said you’re studyin’ biology too.”

“Yes, sir. I finished my master's degree last year and now I’m working towards my doctorate. I’m afraid I’m not as altruistic as Dean-- I simply want to work in a research lab, and a doctorate goes a long way towards finding a desirable position.”

“You don’t have to call me ‘sir’, just Bobby will be fine, Cas. I ain’t too formal. ‘Fraid I don’t know too much about biology; I’m more of a history and literature guy. Now, that,” he indicates the bookshelves Castiel can see from the other room, “I could talk about that all day.”

“Do you have a favorite author?”

“Modern or classic?”

By the time Dean joins them, they’re deep in a discussion of world-building in fantasy and science fiction novels. Dean calls them “fuckin’ dorks,” but jumps into the discussion with enthusiasm at a discussion of Lord of the Rings

“--no, man, you’ve got it wrong. Yeah, it’s great that Tolkien created those languages, but it’s not _just_ the language thing, it’s the way they interact! He knew his shit. So many words in different languages sound the same in our world, right? Like in English we say coffee, right? French it’s cafe, German is kaffee, in Italian it’s caffe… they all sound really similar. Tolkien did the same thing! So the bad guys are the orcs, right, in the common language? In one of the Elvish languages, it's "_yrrch_", and in at least one of the Orcish languages, it's "_uruk_". It’s like a next-level understanding of how words work that blows me away with the depth of detail the man went into to build this world.”

Castiel stares at Dean. How did he have no idea Dean read Lord of the Rings? _And why is it so hot that he knows about linguistic structure?_

“You called us dorks,” Bobby snorts into his glass of whiskey and then downs it. It’s silent for a few moments, and then Cas decides to ask the thing that’s been on his mind since he arrived.

“Dean, is this where you live?”

“Dude, no.”

Bobby sits straight up in his chair and gives Dean a narrow look. “You mean you haven’t shown him yet?”

Dean avoids his gaze, and Castiel doesn’t really understand why. He looks between the two men, and hears Dean answer, “No.”

“What the hell are you waiting for?”

“Um. I dunno. Cas, I swear I was gonna tell you, or show you, but then I was kind of embarrassed.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” though Cas is definitely curious now.

“Well?” Bobby demands, “go show him! I’ll make sure dinner doesn’t burn. Just go!”

“When the timer goes off--” Dean starts, but Bobby interrupts him.

“Take the chicken out of the oven, I got it. Now, go!” He makes a shooing motion with his arms and heads into the kitchen, grumbling something about “damn idjits who can’t get their heads out of their asses to see what’s right in front of them.”

“Alright, alright. Cas, you ready?”

“Ready?”

“Yep. Get your shoes on.”

He and Dean put on their shoes, and Dean grabs the umbrella. He grabs a set of keys off of a hook and leads them out into the rain. When he steers Castiel towards a garage and opens the door, Castiel is expecting to see some kind of garage apartment, not a large van.

“So, uh. Here it is.”

“What?”

“I live here.”

“In the garage?”

“Nah,” Dean shakes his head, “come see.” He slides open the door to the van and flips on a couple of lights inside. When Castiel steps in, he’s… surprised.

It’s very cozy.

There’s a bed that appears to be a full-size mattress about four feet off the ground. There’s a counter along one side with a little sink, a stovetop, and a small oven. Castiel even spots a little fridge. There are cupboards and cabinets and little spots to stow things so they don’t shift around too much if you were to drive. There’s a tabletop with a tablet folded up on it, along with a few of Dean’s textbooks.

“You… live here?”

“Yeah.”

“In a van.”

“Yeah.”

“Wow.”

“Huh. That’s not the reaction I was expecting.”

“I wasn’t expecting a van.”

“I know, it’s small.”

“No. I mean, yes, it’s small. And it’s not at all what I would expect the inside of a van to look like. It’s like a tiny apartment in here.”

“There’s more, too.” He leads Castiel out the side door, and they walk around to the back of the van, where there’s a ladder mounted to the outside. “That’s so I can get up on top easily. I’ve got some tie-downs for storage boxes if I need them, though I don’t use those too often, I usually just keep stuff here at Bobby’s.”

He opens the back door, where Castiel is surprised to discover he’s got a whole storage system underneath the bed. 

“I keep all my clothes here. Shoes, belts, that kind of thing.”

“Wow.”

“So. Is it a deal-breaker?”

Dean thinks Castiel wouldn’t want to be friends with him because he sleeps in a van? “No, I just. You’ve lived in a van all this time?”

“Yup.”

How did Castiel never notice this? “Where?”

“Well, I move her around. Sometimes I like to drive out to where there’s no lights, but I don’t usually have time for that. Usually, I just park her wherever I can find space. Benny lets me park in the alley behind Recoult when I’m working the overnight shift.”

“Why?”

“Rent’s expensive. I like to keep mobile.”

“What about an address? What about a shower? A bathroom?”

“Cas, that’s such a weird thing to worry about,” Dean grins and shakes his head, “but don’t worry. Bobby lets me use his address for everything official. It’s what my driver’s license says and everything. As for bathrooms and showers, there’s public access showers at the Y, and I have a composting toilet I use for when I’m not out in the woods or near a restroom I can use. I have a super cheap membership at Planet Fitness that lets me use their gyms to shower too, and those are all over the country.”

Cas supposes that makes sense, even if it does sound a little tedious. “Where did you find a van like this?”

“Long story, but I was working here at Bobby’s and this girl came to sell her ex-boyfriend’s van that technically she owned, as a kind of revenge? Well, I got it, and I spent a long time fixing her up so she looked nice.”

“You fixed it up on your own?”

“Sure did. Well. I had some help along the way. But mostly, yeah.”

“Wow.”

“You like it?” Dean sounds shy, but Castiel can tell that he feels at least a little proud of this thing he’s built.

“I do. It seems very homey. And comfortable, even though it’s small.”

“Yeah, it is. But you see why I didn’t have you over before?”

“Yes, I see now. But why didn’t you tell me?”

“Cas, you think I wanted to tell you that I was essentially homeless? I live in a van.”

Castiel considers this. “But it’s a nice van.”

“I think you mean a bitchin’ van.”

Cas wrinkles his nose, “I don’t know if I mean that.”

“Yeah, you do. Come on, say it. It’s bitchin’.” Dean steps closer to Castiel, a grin on his face as he moves into Castiel’s space.

“I’m not saying that.” Castiel shakes his head, looking into Dean’s eyes. Dean moves closer, challenging Castiel’s resolve to keep his hands to himself.

“Say it, Novak,” he challenges, lowering his head somewhat so that he can look Castiel right in the eyes.

“I won’t say it, Winchester.” Castiel’s voice sounds hoarse and Dean is so close, now. Dean’s eyes flick down to Castiel’s lips. His tongue darts out to wet his lips. Castiel stops breathing.

There’s a _boom_ of thunder outside. Castiel realizes they are standing very, very close to one another. He can feel Dean’s breath on his face.

Dean’s eyes widen, and he backs away quickly. “We should get back to the house. I made us an early dinner so we can eat dessert all night, and the chicken’s probably done. Just need to cook the pasta and whip the sauce together real quick.” 

_So we’re ignoring that moment, huh? _“What are you making?”

“Fettuccine alfredo.”

“That’s my favorite.” And Dean knows that.

“I know. Why do you think I made it?”

Castiel is definitely in love.

________________________

Fuck. Dean almost _kissed Cas_. What the hell was that?

Dean should not be going around doing that. Yeah, Cas is hot as hell, and super smart, and goddamn hilarious, but he definitely does not need Dean to jump up and kiss him with no warning. Even if Charlie seems to think that Cas probably wants him to. There’s no way she’s right. Right?

_It did kind of seem like he wanted me to kiss him though, right?_

Dean shakes his head to himself. Cas doesn’t want to kiss him. Especially now that Cas knows that Dean is basically homeless and lives in a van.

Even if it _is_ a bitchin’ van.

When they get up to the house, Bobby is on the phone.

“--he’s out in the garage, I’ll tell him to call you when he gets back... I’ll make sure he calls-- wait! He just walked in the door.” He holds the phone out to Dean, “It’s for you.”

“Who’s calling me on your phone?”

“Answer it, idjit. Cas, come on, I wanna show you some of these books I found back when Dean started takin’ those biology classes.” his voice trails off, and Dean puts the phone up to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Dean?” His brother’s voice responds.

“Sam? Why are you calling?”

“It’s Christmas. And I needed to talk to you.”

“No, I mean, how did you know I’d be at Bobby’s?”

“I didn’t know you’d be at Bobby’s, but I figured Bobby would know where you were. I talked to Dad, Dean.” Sam sounds testy, which is a bad sign.

“Oh. You-- you talked to Dad.” Jesus, Sam sounds pissed. Dean’s got to salvage the situation somehow.

“How come Dad says he hasn’t seen you in five years?”

_Now or never_, Dean thinks to himself, and confesses, “probably because he hasn’t seen me in five years.”

“Dean! What the hell? He said you left the same night I did!”

What the hell. _I left? _“He told you _I_ left?”

“Didn’t you hear me?” 

Yeah, Dean heard him. He’s just not sure what to say about it. “I did. Dad told you that I left, though? What exactly did he tell you?”

“He said you got mad at him and stormed out. He told me you ran away. I figured that wasn’t the whole story. And I’m pissed off that you didn’t come with me, if you were going to leave anyway. You told me you were staying with Dad!” Christ, way to make Dean the bad guy here, Dad. Dean notices that John made no mention to Sam of the way he beat the shit out of Dean before he left.

He takes a deep breath and lets it out again. “I meant to stay, Sammy, I just--”

“You just what, Dean? You got sick of me always being around, so you sent me off and then figured you’d strike out on your own? Where have you even been living?” Sam’s practically yelling at Dean now, and it’s pissing Dean off, too.

“It wasn’t like that, Sam. Dad kicked me out.”

“He said you ran off.” _Since when does Sam take Dad’s side?_

“Yeah, he would tell you that,” Dean responds bitterly. “But he uh, definitely kicked me out. Or left without me. Either way, _he _left, not me. I woke up the morning after you left, and all I got was a note telling me to get lost and stay that way.”

Dean can practically hear his brother’s suspicious glare through the phone. “How did you end up at Bobby’s?

“I stayed with him for a little while after Dad left. Worked for him for a while. Then I uh, traveled for a bit. Worked short-term jobs, just trying to figure out what I wanted to do.”

“Did you figure it out? Where do you live now?”

_Fuck. _“Uh. Don’t get mad.”

“Don’t make me mad.”

“I live in San Francisco.”

Silence on the other end. Yeah, Sam’s mad.

“You mean to tell me that I live 40 minutes away from you, and you never contacted me?”

“You don’t need me, Sam. You’re doing great on your own.” Dean knows that his staying away was the best for Sam, but he also knows that his brother won’t see it that way.

“Just because I don’t need you to take care of me doesn’t mean I don’t want you around, asshole. I missed you this whole time, and I was less than an hour away? Fuck you,”

“I’m sorry, Sam. I really thought you wouldn’t want me around. You needed to focus, and I would’ve been a distraction.”

“Yeah, well. You should be sorry. You’ve been lying to me for five years! What are you even doing now, then?”

“Uh, I’m, uh. I’m going to school?”

More silence on the other end.

“Where?”

“San Fran State. SFSU. Graduating in the spring.”

Sam’s voice has gone soft. “What are you getting your degree in?”

“Bachelor of Science. Biology with an emphasis on physiology.”

“Fancy.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “It’s not fancy. It’s taking a damn long time.”

“Five years isn’t that long.”

“Dude, try seven years,” Dean blurts without thinking. Sam doesn’t know about the classes Dean had been taking.

“Huh?”

Time to come clean about all the schooling. “I’ve been taking classes at an online college since I was 18. By the time I graduate in the spring, it’ll be six years. I’ve only been at SFSU since the beginning of this year,” he chuckles, “seven years for a four-year degree isn’t anything to celebrate, Sammy.”

There’s a pause, and then Sam replies “have you been working?”

“Yeah, I got a couple jobs,” he hears a snort behind him. Cas has come in and is clearly not amused at Dean downplaying the amount he works. “Shut up, Cas.”

“Who’s Cas?”

“A friend of mine. We’re both here at Bobby’s for Christmas.”

“Like a boyfriend?”

Dean’s heart beats faster. Is it obvious he likes Cas more than he should? Does Sam know that Dean sometimes likes guys too? “No! Just a friend.”

“Just asking, Dean. You don’t have to jump down my throat about it. It’s okay if you wanted to have a boyfriend, you know.”

“Well, I don’t. Jesus. If dad heard you talking like that…” he’d try to beat the gay outta Dean, for one. _Again._ Cas is staring at him, eyebrows lowered in concern.

“Like what?”

“Never mind. What are you doing this Christmas then? I would have called you tomorrow, you twerp.”

“I’m uh, with my girlfriend.” Dean can picture his brother’s blush, and a grin spreads across his face. 

“_Girlfriend, _huh?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s her name? Is she hot?” Leaning on the counter, he sees Cas roll his eyes at the question. He reaches out with his foot and gives him a nudge with his socked toes in response, and Cas’ mouth turns up at the corner in a sly smile.

“Dean! Her name is Jessica. She’s an education major, we shared some of our gen ed courses.”

“She sounds hot.”

“I’m not responding to that, jerk. Anyway, I’m coming down to see you.”

“What? Sam, no. Hang out with your girlfriend.”

“I’m coming the day after Christmas, just deal with it.”

“Sam, come on…”

“No, Dean. I haven’t seen you or talked to you much in _five years_ because I thought you were still with dad. Now I know you’re not, I’m coming for a visit.”

Dean rubs a hand down his face. Cas looks perplexed at Dean’s reticence to have his little brother that Dean brags about non-stop visit. He really wants Sam and Cas to meet. “Fine. See you then, bitch.”

“Jerk. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, Sammy.” He hangs up and turns to Cas and has a realization.

“He’s gonna freak out when he finds out I live in a van.”

________________________

Dean’s chicken turns out perfect, and Cas wonders aloud where he learned to cook. Dean blushes.

“Oh, here and there. I always liked cooking, even if Dad hated it when I did. I stayed with this chick in New Hampshire who was a professional chef and she taught me some. Ellen taught me how to make a good burger. Benny taught me about marinating my meat,” he lets out a wry laugh, “Gabe taught me to use cold butter in my pies.”

Castiel smiles back at him, “he can occasionally not be terrible.”

“_Very _occasionally. The guy knows his desserts. You guys cook?” Dean’s voice is dubious, and Castiel’s smile becomes a little more knowing.

“Gabe cooks. I watch. And sometimes chop things.”

They spend the evening getting progressively tipsy on wine, and when that runs out, Bobby pulls out his bottle of good bourbon. Dean and Castiel migrate closer and closer to each other on the couch as Christmas movies play in the background.

Dean can feel the line of Cas’s heat all the way up and down his body, and when Cas falls asleep, it’s with his head on Dean’s shoulder. 

Dean is fucked. He looks down at that mop of messy hair and thinks _god, I am so gone on this little nerd. _He startles and looks up when he hears Bobby clear his throat. 

“He’s a good guy.”

“He’s the best.” Dean looks down at him with soft eyes, “I don’t think I would’ve made it through this semester without him. You know he brought me dinner when I was working on the yard for this old house down the road from the school? He saw me while he was riding by on his bicycle. He stopped to say hello, and when my stomach grumbled he figured out that I hadn’t had time to eat all day. He left and got me food, and even got the owner of the house on his side. Dude’s a menace.”

“He sounds like a good friend.”

“He really is. Some guy at the bar was giving this chick and her girlfriend a hard time, and Cas stepped in and made the guy leave. He didn’t even hit the guy, which is what I would’ve done. He said something, the guy turned white as a fucking ghost, paid his bill, and left. I still don’t know what he said.” Dean gives a small, disbelieving laugh. “He’s kind of a badass. Not to mention he’s a genius. I have no idea what he’s doing here with me. He should be at some fancy party, doin’ it up right.”

“He had other offers?”

“I dunno. He should, he’s awesome,” he gives another soft look to the lightly snoring man leaning on his shoulder, “way too good to be hanging around with my sorry ass.”

Bobby snorts, and then groans as he stands up. “Dean, if you haven’t noticed the way that boy looks at you, you’re dumber than a post.”

Dean looks up at Bobby, confused. “Huh?”

“Idjits. You look at him the same way, you’d think you’d do somethin’ about it,” he grumbles, “lock the two of you up in a room and won’t let you out until you sort out that tension,” and Bobby leaves the room, heading to bed. Dean scowls after him.

When Bobby’s door shuts upstairs, Cas startled awake, and immediately looks alarmed.

“Oh no, did I fall asleep on you?”

Dean clears his throat, which feels tight, all of the sudden with Cas’ blue eyes staring at him just so. “Yeah, it’s cool, Cas.” Dean stands up and stretches, as much to get away from that look as to make a move to go to bed, his mind racing.

What was it Bobby said? _The way he looks at you_ and _you look at him the same way_. Shit. Cas isn’t interested in Dean. Right?

He swallows thickly and he turns to face the couch. Cas is watching him in the dim lighting of the living room. The only lights on are the colorful lights on the tree. His eyes flick down to Cas’ mouth, then back up to his eyes. 

Which appear to be focused on Dean’s mouth.

“Dean,” Cas begins--

_Fuck it, _Dean thinks to himself.

And he leans down to press his mouth against Castiel’s.

Castiel makes a sound of surprise, but then he’s _kissing Dean back._

There aren’t any fireworks, and the world doesn’t stop. But in Dean’s mind, there’s a slight ‘click’ that registers, like two magnets that have been held slightly apart have finally been allowed to connect.

Cas opens his mouth slightly and allows Dean’s tongue access, and Dean takes it greedily. He moves forward and straddles Cas thighs, kneeling on the couch. He holds onto Cas’ shoulders as he feels Cas’ hands grab at his hips and slide up to his waist. 

Dean pulls his mouth away from Cas’ to lean their foreheads together, eyes closed, and whispers “sorry.” He didn’t even ask before he just kissed Cas, fuck, Cas is going to be so mad. How many times has Cas lectured him about consent, and then he just goes and does something like this to the guy?

Cas pulls his head back. “What are you sorry for?”

“I basically just attacked you. Shit, Cas, I’m so sorr--”

Cas covers Dean’s mouth with his hand, and Dean restrains the childish urge to lick his palm.

“I have wanted to do that since the first time we met,”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I wasn’t sure that you liked other men.”

“I don’t. I mean, not usually.”

Cas smiles. “Dean do you want to go up to bed? Just to sleep, I mean.”

“Just to sleep? No more kissing?”

“Kissing could still be allowed.”

“Good, I like the kissing.”

Dean moves around the room, unplugging lights and turning off lamps, while Cas stretches his arms in the background. Dean pauses and stares when he hears the small moan escape from Cas’ throat.

Cas must realize he made a sound, because he blushes and says, “sorry.”

Dean clears his throat. “Yeah, uh. Don’t be.”

They make their way up to Dean’s old room, where Cas’ bags have been set.

“Where are your things?”

“Uh. I was going to just sleep out in the van, since you’d be in my room.”

“Will you stay with me?” 

“Only if you want me to.”

“Of course I want you to.”

They both get ready for bed, Cas changing into a t-shirt that proclaims, “Save the Bees!” along with some flannel pajama bottoms. Dean blushes at the glimpses of Cas’ bare skin, but strips off his overshirt and jeans, and climbs into the bed beside Cas.

They lay on the bed, each other them on their sides, curved towards each other. Cas gives a smile, and Dean smiles back.

“Is this when we talk about our dating history?”

Dean laughs softly in response. “If you want.”

“Mine’s very short.”

“Tell me.”

“I dated Daphne in high school. Balthazar, for a moment, until we both realized that there was no way he and I could ever work for more than a few days. Since then I’ve been mostly on my own, though I’ve had maybe two partners since then. You?”

“I thought you were gay.”

“It’s more expedient to simple tell others I’m gay, though I suppose I identify more as pansexual. I am more or less indifferent to gender presentation.”

“Huh. Well. I guess I’m bisexual. I’ve only ever dated women, though. Had a couple of drunk hookups with men, but that’s it.” Dean decides that Castiel does not need to know about the paying customers. They don’t count, anyway. “I’ve never really found another guy that I’ve wanted to date.”

Cas’ smile turns teasing. “Oh, am I special?”

“You’re special.”

Cas looks surprised, like he isn’t expecting the absolute sincerity with which Dean states that. He gives Dean a soft look that he absolutely does not deserve. No one looks at Dean like that.

“You’re special too, Dean.”

“Nah. I mean, I’m alright.” Dean looks away from Cas. His insides squirm a bit, because he isn’t being altogether truthful with Cas. Dean’s had sex with an awful lot of men and women. He’s used up already. There’s nothing special about Dean.

When his eyes find Cas’ again, Cas looks sad. 

“Are you okay?”

“I wish you could see what I see when I look at you.”

“Yeah, well. Sometimes I think you’re seein’ something that ain’t there.” He reaches out and hooks Cas’ fingers with his. Before Cas can respond, he continues, “Are you-- are we boyfriends, Cas?”

“Do you want to be?”

What Dean wants isn’t important, but hell, yeah he does. “I asked you first.”

Cas’ eyes narrow, but he responds, “Yes. I want to be.”

“Good. Me too.”

“Good. Goodnight, Dean.”

“Night, Cas.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [beekind](http://www.beekind.com/) is a company that makes local honey in California! Check them out if you're in the area, it looks like they make some interesting stuff!


	9. flare-up.

Christmas is uneventful, other than Bobby rolling his eyes at the two of them cuddled up on the couch under the same blanket. They find an excuse to be touching, whether it’s Cas standing behind Dean at the stove, Dean leaning against Cas’ legs as he passes out gifts from under the tree, or their ankles hooked together under the kitchen table as they eat their breakfast and drink their coffee.

“Took you two long enough,” Bobby grumbles behind his mug of coffee.

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean responds, reaching across Cas for the orange juice. “Gotta tell Sam, though. And he’s going to be a pain in the ass after the conversation we had yesterday where I 100% denied there was anything going on.” Sam had texted him early in the morning, with a cheerful _“Merry Christmas! I’ll see you tomorrow! Can’t wait to meet Cas!”_.

“It’s not like you were lying.”

“No, but he’s going to be all smug and understanding, and he’s going to want to talk. About _feelings_, Cas. _Feelings_.” He shudders dramatically.

Cas rolls his eyes and goes back to smiling into his coffee mug.

________________________

It turns out Sam does indeed want to talk.

Sam texts him when he’s an hour out, and Dean paces in the kitchen.

“Sit down, boy, you’re going to wear a hole through the floor.”

“What if he’s mad at me? He’s going to be pissed. And when he finds out about me and Cas? I mean, he _says_ he doesn’t care, but that’s all different when you actually _see _it, isn’t it?” All of Charlie’s assurances that his little brother will still love him mean jack shit when he’s faced with suddenly coming out to him.

Bobby grunts at him, an acknowledgment that he’s spoken, but it’s not agreement.

“It _is_, Bobby! And if Dad finds out--”

“Who’s gonna tell John?”

“I don’t _know_, but it’s going to get out, and then he’s going to kill me.” Dean sits abruptly in the chair across from Bobby. “He’s gonna kill Cas.”

“Who’s killing me?” Cas walks into the room, hair still damp from his shower, and frowns at Dean.

“No one. Nothing’s going to happen. Cas, maybe this isn’t--”

“Boy, if you finish that sentence I will end you. You’re a grown-ass man, and your daddy’s a homophobic dick. He ain’t got no reason to hear about it, an’ you ain’t got no reason to care after what he did to you.”

“What did he do to you?” Cas’ head tilts as he considers this possible clue into Dean’s background.

“Nothin’, Cas. Just got mad at me.” Dean’s brush-off is accompanied by a feeling of internal panic that Bobby is going to spill the beans on the secret Dean’s kept from everyone. But he should know better, Bobby is nothing if not loyal to a fault.

Bobby snorts and shakes his head. “Your brother’s nothin’ like him, Dean. Now. Eat your toast. Sam’s gonna be here in a few minutes, and I don’t need you faintin’ from low blood sugar.”

Dean glares at Bobby, but picks up his toast and obediently takes a bite.

Cas watched this whole exchange with an odd look on his face, and seems to decide a subject change is in order, given that the next words out of his mouth are, “how long is Sam staying?”

“Dunno. Maybe a couple days? Stanford isn’t that far from here, so he could just go back and forth.”

“There’s an extra bedroom, isn’t there?”

“More like an office. But Sam could stay in the house and we could stay in the van, if that’s something you want to do.”

“That sounds like a good plan.”

They finish their respective breakfasts in silence, Cas hooking his ankle to Dean’s while he pours himself some cereal.

Less than ten minutes later, they hear a car door slam, and Dean sits straight up in his chair, frozen. He stares at Cas for five seconds, and then bolts to the door, almost tripping over the chair and slipping on the rug in the hallway. He skids to a stop right as the door opens, and his little brother steps into view.

Fuck, is that his little brother?

Sam’s taller than Dean is now, even if he’s still pretty skinny. His hair is longer than it’s ever been, brushing his ears and getting into his eyes. Dean stares at him, and Sam stares back. He wonders what Sam is thinking, but before he can ask, Sam darts forward and pulls his big brother into a tight hug.

“Jesus, Dean. You look the same.”

“You don’t. What, they giving you Miracle-Gro at that fancy school? And you need a haircut.”

“Shut up, jerk.”

“Bitch.” 

They pull apart, and both huff a laugh, smiles very wide.

“Been too long, Sammy.”

“It’s Sam. And whose fault is that?”

Dean should have kept his mouth shut.

“Yeah, I know. Come on, get in here. Come see Bobby, and you need to meet Cas.”

Dean leads his brother into the kitchen, where Sam and Bobby greet each other with a back-slapping hug. Sam turns to Cas and holds out his hand. “Nice to meet you. Cas, I take it?”

“Yes,” Cas takes his hand and gives it a firm shake, “Dean’s told me a lot about you,”

“I haven’t heard much about you, though. Why is that?”

Dean interrupts, “Maybe I was trying to keep you from gettin’ your nose all in my business, bitch. Now, siddown. You want coffee or anything?”

“Coffee’s good.”

Dean grabs his brother a mug and realizes he doesn’t know how he likes it. “You uh, want--”

“Cream and sugar are on the table, Dean,” Cas responds, and Dean gives him a grateful look.

He sits back down at the table, and Sam gives him an even look. “So.”

“So.”

Sam raises his eyebrows. “What’s new?”

________________________

Sam takes the news of Dean and Castiel’s relationship well, if a bit smugly (_“I knew it!” Sam exclaimed. “No you didn’t,” Dean responded testily, “we only got together Christmas Eve!”_)

Dean tells him about the classes that he’s taking, but doesn’t share with him the reason. He doesn’t want to get Sam’s hopes up just to let him down when Dean can’t hack it. He doesn’t like to share too many future plans with Sam, just in case things go wrong. He hates disappointing Sam. 

“So wait, after Dad left you called Bobby?”

“Yeah.”

“Why? Why didn’t you call me?”

Dean can feel Bobby starting at the side of his face, but he doesn’t turn to acknowledge him. He hesitates, looking down at his hands. This isn’t a part of his life he likes to rehash. He hasn’t ever told Cas about it, much less Sam, and he never intended to. 

“I didn’t want to worry you, I told you. I’d’ve been a distraction, and you needed to study and keep good grades so you didn’t lose your scholarship.”

Sam looks over at Bobby, who has a great poker face except for when he thinks Dean’s being an idiot. And he doesn’t care about that being a secret. Dean looks over at his surrogate uncle, who looks like he’s on the verge of melting the butter on the table with the heat of his glare. Sam directs his next question to Bobby. 

“What isn’t he telling me?”

Bobby glances at Sam and then looks over at Dean, who shakes his head tightly. 

“Nothin’, son. I’m gonna go out and check that car a’yours. You said the steering wheel felt tight?”

“Yes, but—“

“Talk to your brother, Dean.”

Bobby walks out, and Dean can hear the keys on the hook jingle before the door shuts. Cas stays seated at the table looking ready to jump between the two men, if need be.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing, Sam! Dad was pissed at me when you left, we got in a fight, he left. End of story.” He glances over at Cas, trying to gauge his reaction, but Cas has an awesome poker face. “He told me he wanted nothing to do with me, and so I haven’t heard from him since that night. Okay? That’s it!” Dean growls, frustrated. “Why you gotta make such a big deal outta this?”

“I just want to know what happened. It seemed like something else happened.”

“Nothing else happened.”

“Alright,” Sam sits back in his chair, looking frustrated. “How did you two meet?”

Cas launches into the story of their background, telling Sam about Recoult, his brother, and how he and Dean have very similar subjects they’re studying, though there’s a different concentration. While he tells the story, he takes hold of Dean’s hand under the table. Dean blushes, but he feels a warm rush of reassurance. How Cas can be so confident, Dean will never understand. Cas and Dean are actually very close in age, for all that Cas is a doctoral student and Dean is still an undergrad. 

“... and Dean has this week off of the cafe, even though he’s still going to be working at the bar in the evenings this week. So we’re staying out here, rather than in the city.”

“Makes sense. You work in a cafe and a bar?”

Cas answers for him, giving his hand a squeeze and looking over at him in admiration, which makes Dean blush, “he works in a cafe, and a bar, and here at the shop, and around town doing odd jobs when he can. I’ve been trying to get him to take a break, but this is the best I’ve been able to do.”

“Hey, I’m working 20 hours instead of 40 hours a week over the break, you got your wish.”

“How do you work 40 hours a week and still go to school?”

Dean shrugs. “I just do. Schedule my work around my classes. My bosses are very accommodating, which is lucky. I just do what I have to do, it doesn’t take a genius to do my jobs.”

“He works very hard,” Cas gently contradicts.

Dean frowns. “You make it sound like I’m some sort of overachiever, Cas, it’s not a big deal.”

“It IS a big deal. Most people don’t work this hard. When you’re a paramedic it’s going to feel like a vacation—”

Sam shifts his focus to Dean. “You’re gonna be a paramedic?”

Dean feels his face get hot yet again, what the fuck? “Oh, uh, I dunno, Sam, maybe.”

“Maybe?” Cas asks, looking surprised. “That’s what you told me you wanted to do. You’ve got the coursebook sitting on your bookshelf right now.”

“Yeah, I just— don’t wanna jinx it, is all.” Too many people knowing about his goal makes him nervous. That’s a lot more people to disappoint if he can’t do it.

“Oh. My apologies, then.”

“You don’t hafta apologize, Cas. I like that you’re excited.” He squeezes Cas’ hand in apology for alarming him. It’s hard to hear Cas say all those things about him being a hard worker, though, and he had to make him stop. He’s pretty sure Cas sets his standards low for him, so when he surpasses them he looks impressive. 

“A paramedic, huh?”

Dean shrugs. “It’s a job. And I like helping people. You know, makes me feel like I can make up for all the trouble I caused.”

Cas shakes his head ruefully at Dean, “You don’t have time to make trouble.”

“Not anymore, I don’t. Tell him, Sam.”

Sam grins. “Dean used to be quite the partier. I don’t think he ever got arrested,” he looks over at Dean, who shakes his head, a rakish grin on his face, “but he was always getting busted up at bars and stuff.”

Cas thinks about the injuries he sees on his friend— or rather, his boyfriend frequently. He knows Dean doesn’t have the time to get into bar fights, he’s barely ever got time to himself. He can’t account for the time, and it worries him. 

________________________

Later that evening, Sam accompanies Castiel to the Roadhouse, where Dean is working a shift until midnight. He’s looking forward to seeing Ellen, and maybe Jo, who he hasn’t seen since they were kids. He asks Castiel if he’s been there before. 

“Yes, I often keep Dean company while he works. We study together when he has a break, or I quiz him while he’s making drinks.”

“You don’t work?”

“I’m a TA for classes during the semesters, which pays for my room and board. Fortunately, I’ve got some money put away, so, no, I don’t have to work.”

“Oh, you live on campus?”

“In the on-campus apartments. I have a small single there.”

“Oh. I don’t know why I thought you and Dean were living together.”

“Ah, no. We’ve only been dating for approximately 36 hours.”

“Right, I forgot.”

They walk the rest of the way in companionable silence. If Dean doesn’t live with Bobby, and he doesn’t live with Cas, where does he live?

They open the doors of the Roadhouse to find a decent crowd for a holiday week, and they spot Dean behind the bar talking to an older pair of men sitting at the bar. When Dean spots them, he waves them over and indicates they should sit near the two men. 

“Rufus, I told you,” he’s saying as they approach, “Ellen’s cutting you off after four whiskeys. You can have water or beer.”

“A beer, I guess. You’re a pain in the ass, Winchester.”

“Oh, I know it, Rufus. Can I get you two something? He winks at Cas and grins at Sam. You sure you’re old enough to drink, kid?”

Sam glowers at Dean, “I turned 21 this year, jerk.”

“Aw, you’ll always be a chubby twelve year old to me, Samantha.” He winks at Cas, who grins back. “Whaddaya want?” He starts pulling a beer and slides it over to Castiel, who nods and takes a drink. Apparently, he doesn’t need to ask. 

“Uh, what’s on tap?”

“You trust me to pick something?”

“Yeah, alright.”

Dean moves around behind the bar, and Sam watches him. His brother looks much the same as he had the last time they were together, though there was something a little different. This Dean is thinner, and he’s got dark circles under his eyes like bruises. He clearly doesn’t sleep enough, and no wonder, given the number of hours Castiel says he works every week. He watches his brother confidently pull another beer, and he places it in front of Sam.

The beer Dean picks is hoppy, but has a hint of some kind of fruit in it. “What is this?”

“It’s a mango IPA.”

“It’s good!”

“Duh. You think I’d give you some shitty beer?” A couple of girls walk up to the bar, and Dean goes to take their order with a slight swagger to his walk. Sam rolls his eyes. Even in front of his boyfriend, Dean flirts with everyone.

“Honestly, I kind of thought he would,” Sam confides in Cas.

The man Dean called Rufus answered, “Nah, he wouldn’t do you like that. Winchester’s a damn baby for following that old bat Ellen’s rules, but he’s got good taste in beer.”

“That old what, now?” A voice sounds behind them. 

“You heard me, woman! Who cuts a man off of Johnny Walker? That ain’t right.”

“You’ll thank me at the end of the night when you can still walk,” she pats Sam on the shoulder, bringing him in for a hug, “Sam! It’s been an awfully long time since I heard from you. What, they don’t make phones in Palo Alto now?”

“Uh, sorry, Ellen. Guess it got away from me. I didn’t even know Dean was working here until today. Thought he was still with dad.”

“Oh, that old bastard. John comes around, you tell him I wanna talk to him. He can’t treat people like that and get away with it! If Dean hadn’t called Bobby, who knows what woulda happened up there in Salem?” She walks back around the bar, and Sam looks at her a bit confused. 

“What happened in Salem?”

“What happ— Dean didn’t tell you?”

“He told me Dad left.”

Ellen throws a sour look over to where Dean is filling a drink order and cashing out another customer, and mumbles under her breath. “That stubborn boy,” Sam can barely make out what she’s saying, “talk to his own brother about their daddy doin’ that to him,” and then louder, she sighs, “you’re gonna have to ask Dean. God knows he not going to volunteer to tell you.”

Sam is officially more suspicious than he’s been all evening. “Tell me what?”

“Not my story to tell. I wasn’t even there. ‘Scuse me. I’ll tell Jo you’re here, she’ll want to say hi. Cas, you want your usual?”

Cas nods, and Ellen heads back into the kitchen.

“Your usual?”

“Cheese fries. I’ll share.” Sounds like Cas really is here a lot to keep Dean company. It’s nice to see Dean letting himself make connections with people. Growing up, Dean was always too busy, and high schoolers didn’t care enough to make the effort. Dean never made the effort either, knowing they’d be gone soon anyway. It was always Sam trying to make friends and fit into various social groups. 

Maybe Castiel knows what Ellen was talking about, because Sam sure doesn’t. “What was she saying earlier about Dean?”

“I’m not sure,” he furrows his brow, “but there might be more to the story than Dean is sharing,” he looks cautiously at Sam, as though he’s wary of saying the right thing. “I’m sure you know this, but your brother keeps things very ‘close to the vest’, as they say.”

The guy used air quotes. Sam likes him. 

“Yeah, he does. But I usually get the truth out of him eventually.”

“Hm.” Cas takes another drink of his beer. 

The night passes with Cas and Sam getting to know one another. Jo stops by to harass Sam (and she’s definitely grown into an attractive young woman, even if she _is _two years younger than Sam, he notes with interest), and Dean stops by periodically, to refill their glasses or to chat while the bar is quiet.

All the while, Sam is wondering about what happened with his dad. He’s always known that Ellen and Bobby weren’t his biggest supporters, but they lent a hand for the boys when they’d needed it. They always put up with his dad’s shit before, so what’s different? It seems like they haven’t seen him in a while either. Which is weird, because he remembers them calling John pretty regularly to check on him and the boys. 

It’s just weird. 

When he talked to his dad the other day, the man seemed dismissive of Dean. He didn’t know where his son was and didn’t seem to care. John had called out of the blue, apparently to get an address to send… something to Sam. When the topic turned to his brother, his dad had growled angrily, “I don’t know, Sam, the kid got into some kind of hissy fit, stormed out five years ago and I haven’t talked to him since. Wouldn’t surprise me if he’s still not taking any responsibility for his own life, and his choices,” and hung up. 

Sam knows that’s bullshit, even if he was mad at Dean at first. He should’ve known Dean would never walk out on John. Dean took care of Sam growing up. Dad made them move around all the time for his job (even though it seemed like he could’ve just traveled for it, since he was gone most of the time anyway), but Dean was there to make sure Sam had all of his classwork done, and made sure they knew how to transfer their records to other schools. Dean cooked him dinner. Dean had a job when he was 14 as a busboy, though Sam still didn’t know how he pulled that off. 

Dean never ran out on his family. _So what the hell is going on?_ Sam thinks to himself.

When midnight comes, Sam is tipsy, but Cas and Dean are both sober. Dean had gotten a ride into work earlier with another guy so he could ride back with Cas and Sam. He takes one look at his little brother and demands the keys.

“Yeah, yeah, fine. I’d be _fine_, but I guess you always get to drive,” Sam can be a sullen drunk, he knows, but he really doesn’t mind Dean driving. Feels like the way it’s supposed to be. Cas even gets in the back so that Sam can stretch his long legs in the front.

“Never could hold your beer, dude,” Dean grins cheerfully as he turns the engine over and shifts into drive, “I always liked that about you. College hasn’t toughened up your tolerance one bit, has it?” He teases.

Sam pouts. He folds his arms defiantly across his chest and looks out the window. A memory comes drifting to the front of his mind.

The first time Sam had gotten drunk was when Dean was freshly 21. Dean bought them a bottle of whiskey, and they drove out to a field and laid on the hood of Dean’s Malibu, talking and doing a little bit of roughhousing. Mostly they just sat there and looked at the stars, listened to some music. It wasn’t exciting, but it was time he spent with his brother that he remembered fondly. Sam frowns, remembering the next morning. Dad had come home earlier that night and found the boys missing, and he nearly shouted Dean right out of the house when they got home. Dean sent Sam off to bed, and the next morning, Dean had a bruise on his jaw. Sam remembered asking him about it, and Dean laughed it off, saying that he had a hell of a right hook for a girl and that he’d walloped Dean good the night before. He laughed at Sam for not remembering, and Sam’s memory _was _a little fuzzy, so he didn’t question it.

He’s questioning it now.

“Dean.” The realizations are coming faster, now. Why did he ever believe Dean when he said he was clumsy?

“Yeah?”

“Dean!” Dean wasn’t clumsy! He’s seen Dean climb a ten-foot fence and land flawlessly on the ground after jumping from near the top. Sam almost sprained his ankle trying to get over that fence, and he definitely scraped his hands.

“What, Sam? You gonna puke?”

“No. Dad did that!” Dad. Dad punched Dean. He was sitting straight up, eyes wide as he came to several realizations at once. How had he never noticed? Sam is such an _idiot_!

“Uh, what?”

“The bruise on your face, it was _Dad_!”

“What bruise, Sam? There’s no bruise.” Dean’s irritated, but Sam continues.

“There _was, though_. After the drinking in the field,” he gapes at his brother, a little drunker than he maybe realized. The thoughts aren’t coming out as coherent as he intends them to, and he needs his brother to tell him the truth. “Pull over!” He leans to grabs the wheel, and Dean pushes him away.

“Jesus, Sam! Pulling over at the rest stop, it’s right up here. Don’t make us crash, you idiot!”

When the car stops at the overlook, Sam gets out. Dean and Cas follow, both looking apprehensive. Cas is silent, eyes bouncing between the two of them.

“Sam, what’s wrong?”

“Dad _hit you!_”

“Sam, what?” Dean’s jaw clenches, but he knows that look. Dean’s pretending. He glances over at Cas, who’s narrowed his eyes at Dean, assessing.

He runs his fingers through his hair. “I can’t believe I never saw it.”

“Never saw what, Sam, I’m fine.” Dean always says he’s fine.

“You _weren’t_ though.”

“Sam, I’m always fine. Always have been. Are you gonna puke?” Changing the subject, Dean. Slick.

He might, but not from the beer. “Nuh-uh.”

“Then get in the car. We can talk in the morning when you’re actually sober and can hold a conversation that makes fucking sense.”

Cas starts, “Dean--”

But Dean cuts him off. “I don’t want to talk about it. We can talk in the morning,” he replies firmly. “Now, both of you. Get in the car.”

They climb back into the car, but Sam can’t keep his thoughts in order. How many times had Dad hit Dean? Why didn’t Dean ever say anything? He’s angry, and he doesn’t know if he’s angrier at his dad or his brother, or maybe himself.

On second thought, he’s definitely more angry at his dad. Aren’t parents supposed to take care of their kids? Their dad abandoned them at motels and shitty apartments, and on top of all that, he had the _nerve_ to hurt Dean? And Dean just _took it_?

Sam’s whole world feels like it’s shifting as Dean turns the car into Bobby’s yard. He shuts off the car and when Sam tries to talk to him, he holds up his hand.

“Not now, Sam. In the morning.”

“But--”

“Go to bed. My room’s all made up for you.”

“Where’re you sleeping?”

“I’ll tell you about it in the morning. Goodnight.”

“Night, D,” he huffs. He still wants to know, but Dean’s worked all night. He should get some sleep. He should probably eat more, too. He doesn’t like how thin and tired his brother looks. As he gets ready for bed, he tries to remember if Dean ate the dinner that he had prepared for them before he left for work, but he can’t. Dean was definitely there while he was eating, but did he eat? Or did he just dash out the door?

________________________

Castiel stands next to Dean while they watch Sam amble up the steps and into the house.

“D’you think I should go help him?” Dean worries, beside him.

“No, he’s not that drunk, Dean. Let's go to bed. You have your keys?”

“Always have my keys, dude.”

They start to walk over to the garage, boots crunching on the gravelly dirt under their feet. Cas takes a breath and tries to talk to Dean.

“So.”

“Yeah.”

“... is he right?”

“Cas,” Dean whines, and looks a bit tortured. “I’m tired. Can we just-- can we talk about this tomorrow? After I’ve had some coffee and can think straight?”

Cas narrows his eyes at Dean as he opens the side door to the garage. He follows Dean in, watching him open the back door of the van to collect some clothes for the two of them to wear for the night. Cas sees him grab an extra toothbrush, and follows him inside. There’s not a lot of space inside, with two fully grown men standing, so Cas takes a seat on the bench while Dean hands him a toothbrush loaded with toothpaste.

He’s afraid that the reason Dean wants to talk in the morning is so that he can come up with an excuse.

“Dean,” he starts, around his toothbrush, “I just want to make sure you’re alright.”

“I’m alright, Cas. Just tired. Ready for bed.” He strips off his clothes, leaving just his boxer briefs on, and climbs into the bed. “Come on, dude. Snuggle me.”

“Are you asking for a cuddle?”

“M’just asking because I know you want to.” Dean’s petulant reply has Cas grinning, and he can help but lean down to give Dean a kiss.

“Sure, Dean.” Cas undresses and throws on the pajama pants that Dean had pulled out for him to wear, along with one of the t-shirts. It’s has a logo for a band Castiel has heard of, but never listened to on the front. “_I’m _the cuddler. Definitely not you.”

“Damn straight.”

When Castiel gets into bed, Dean pulls him close. Castiel can feel slight tremors in Dean’s hands, but he doesn’t mention them, just covers up Dean’s hands with his own.

A moment later, Dean whispers, “Sam’s gonna want to know a lot of stuff I don’t talk about. Ever.” Castiel nods. It sounds as though Sam is going to ask a lot of questions tomorrow, and he’s not going to accept platitudes. There’s silence for a while.

“You know, I’m not sure if I believed you before, how comfortable this bed actually is.”

“Heh, yeah, I told you. Memory foam. And it’s damn cozy.”

“Goodnight, Dean.”

“‘Night, Cas.”

________________________

In the morning, Dean wakes, and for a moment, all he feels is warm and comfortable, with Cas at his side, it's definitely chilly outside, but the garage insulates them slightly from the outside chill, and his van is pretty well insulated. And it helps to have two people’s body heat under a comfortable blanket. Dean never wants to leave his cocoon.

Then he remembers last night.

Fuck, Sam came to some kind of realization that Dean maybe hadn’t always told him the truth about how he continued to get hurt. His breath comes a little shallower, slightly faster. Shit, Sam is going to be mad. He hates upsetting his brother, that’s the whole point of not telling him about the shit his dad put him through! He starts to jiggle his leg but then stops because he doesn't want to wake Cas.

“Dean?” Crap, but of course he did anyway. _Nice going, Winchester._ _Cas’ arms are wrapped around you, you don’t think he’d notice when you start wiggling?_

“Shh, go back to sleep.” Dean’s voice sounds tight to his own ears, so of course Cas can hear his distress.

“Are you okay?” Cas is definitely awake now. He’s scarily attuned to Dean’s moods.

All Dean can do is nod and make an affirmative sound. If he talks, he’ll choke.

“Hey,” Cas gives a kiss to Dean’s bare shoulder and a firm squeeze in his arms, which should make Dean feel like he’s suffocating, but instead makes him feel like he’s being held together, like he can’t fall apart. “Do you want to lay here a little longer, or do you want to get up and go back to the house?”

“Can we just drive away?”

“I’m afraid not. Your brother needs to hear from you.”

“Damn. Kid’s needy.”

He can feel Cas smile against the back of his neck, and he gives a small huff of a laugh. “It’s not his fault he’s got such a fantastic older brother,”

Dean rotates in Cas’ arms so that they’re facing one another. “Fantastic, huh? Who’s that, then?”

Castiel gives him an exaggerated frown, and Dean wants to kiss it off his face. “Dean Winchester, I know you’re not going to start today off talking bad about my favorite person like that.”

“I’m your favorite person?” That shouldn’t make Dean feel as warm inside as it does.

“Who else?”

Dean gives him a fond look. “We should get up. You want waffles?”

“Will you put cinnamon in them?”

“Hell yeah, I will.”

They get distracted for a moment when Dean leans over to Cas to give him a good morning kiss, and it goes on for longer than they planned, but Dean considers this worth the distraction. 

When they finally make it back up to the house, clad in pajamas with thick sweatshirts and boots, Sam and Bobby are already sitting at the table drinking coffee. Sam looks a bit worse for wear, but a hangover will do that to you.

“Morning.”

Sam grumbles in response, and Bobby gives them a grunt while he reads the paper. Dean sets about gathering the things he needs to make waffles while Cas poured them both cups of coffee. He gives him a kiss on the cheek in thanks when he hands Dean his, and then goes to sit down at the table. 

Pouring the batter into the waffle iron, Dean sees that Sam is beginning to perk up. He grabs the fruit salad Bobby had picked up at the store and sets it on the table, Cas sees what he’s up to, and gets up to get silverware and plates to set the table. The waffle iron beeps, and Dean slides the first waffle onto its plate.

“First waffle, who wants it?” Bobby leans over and snatches the plate. “Ever hear of ‘guests first’, Bobby?”

“Don’t see no guests here,” Bobby grumbles, and tucks into his waffle after drowning it in butter and syrup. Sam’s probably gonna put fruit on his, the health freak.

Dean continues making waffles until everyone has their first waffle on their plates, the repetitive _pour, turn, beep, lift lid, move waffle_ letting him get lost in the process. He settles into his chair at the table and notices Sam giving him the hairy eyeball.

“What, Sam?”

“Will you tell me, now?”

“Tell him what?” Bobby asks, looking between the two men.

“He’s going to tell me if dad hit him.”

“What, in Salem? Dean, I thought you told Sam about that yesterday.”

“I wasn’t talking about Salem. What happened in Salem? Ellen said something yesterday, too.”

Dean shifts uncomfortably, and mumbles, “just told him Dad and me got into a fight.”

“Oh, that’s what it was, huh? You got some good hits on the old man too, then?” Bobby is clearly irritated.

“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?”

Bobby humphs, and looks expectantly at Dean. Dean looks over at Cas, who’s watching him with his eyebrows raised. Sam looks like he’s waiting to have the rug ripped out from under his feet. Which, in fairness, is what Dean’s about to do. He tries to soften the blow.

“Yeah. Uh. So, in Salem, when you left, we _did_ get into an argument. But, uh. I don’t actually remember a lot of it.”

“Were you drinking?” Sam questions, suspiciously.

“No, I wasn’t drinking, dude.”

“Dad was.”

“Yeah, he was. Uh, he was mad, Sam. That you left, that I let you leave.”

“You _let me leave_?”

“I signed the paperwork, man,” Dean responds irritably.

“I would’ve figured out another way to go.”

“_Anyway._ He was mad that I let you leave. He figured he didn’t need me around anymore, since you were gone. And he was right, Sam. My only job was to look out for you, and I finished my job. I probably should’ve left that night, but uh, Dad got to it first.

“You gotta understand, Sam, he was wasted. He wouldn’t have done that if he had been sober.”

Sam’s eyes are suspiciously wet, but he asks “done what, exactly?” like he’s waiting for Dean to confirm his worst fears.

“He got a little rough. Got a concussion. Sprained my knee, broke my wrist,” his voice feels hoarse, but he pushes through, eager to be done with this conversation. “He left that night, or the next morning, I don’t know. Bobby came and picked me up, I came and stayed with him for a while. Bought my van from him, fixed it up, and traveled for a while. And now I’m here.” Dean sees Bobby frowning at him. So sue him, he left some stuff out. Sam doesn’t need to know the gory details.

Sam’s got tears of frustration rolling down his face, and Dean hates that he’s the one that put them there.

“I’m so sorry--” Dean begins, but Sam stands up abruptly and walks to the opposite side of the room. He paces back towards Dean, and he looks furious.

“Don’t tell me you’re sorry! You’re sorry? Why the hell are you sorry? Dad hit you so hard you don’t _remember_, and you’re apologizing?”

“Sam, it was my fault--”

“_Stop_, Dean, do you hear yourself?”

He looks over at Cas, who looks like he’s restraining himself from punching a wall, and then looks over at Bobby, who’s got his arms crossed, and he’s glaring at Dean.

Sam sees the look on Bobby’s face, because he says “what. Bobby, why are you looking at him like that?”

Bobby looks up at Sam, and then back at Dean. “Son, tell him.”

“I did,” Dean says, firmly.

“You left out some details.”

“He doesn’t need the fucking details, Bobby.” Besides, he doesn’t remember some of it. He can’t remember how long he was in the hospital, and he can’t really remember how Bobby got there in the first place.

Bobby takes a breath, and then turns to Sam. “I got there about 12 hours after it all happened,”

“Bobby!” Dean protests. Sam doesn’t need to know how weak Dean is, and Cas doesn’t either. Cas already looks pissed off, and Dean tries to make himself believe that he’s not angry at Dean.

“He needs to know,” Bobby says firmly. “I don’t like these secrets between you two, not when it affects you both,” he goes back to his story. “So I got there about 12 hours later, because it takes a good 8 hours on the road to drive to Oregon from here.

“Dean had called me, all slurrin’ his words and talkin’ about how you left, Sam. He seemed in a bad way, and when he told me John left too, and then he tried to convince me to just leave him there, I grabbed my bags and drove up there.” Dean’s staring at the floor, wishing it would open up and swallow him whole. Why does Bobby think everyone needs to know this shit? It’s fucking embarrassing. But he keeps talking.

“... I took him to the hospital, because he was in bad shape. Wrist all bent to hell, knee turned funny, blood all over his damn face. Couldn’t wake him up in the car, and he didn’t wake up for a day and a half. He had two seizures in the hospital, doctors weren’t sure he didn’t have some kinda brain damage. Kid’s lucky I got there when I did.” Dean didn’t know about the seizures. Or didn’t remember. “When they discharged him, I made him come back with me. Cleaned up the house y’all were stayin’ in, and got Garth to drive Dean’s car back. He stayed with me for about a year, but after he got that van, he started drivin’ all over the place, but called to check in once in a while.”

“What van?” Sam asks, curious. He was still crying, but he finally landed on a question Dean could answer.

“I’ll show you in a bit, if you want, Sammy. I bought a van from this girl and outfitted it with a bed and a little kitchen and everything.”

Cas clears his throat, and adds, “it really is something, Sam. We slept there last night.”

“Where is it?”

“The garage out front. Bobby lets me store some boxes here and park when I’m working for him.”

“You live in a van.”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I uh. I like to be on the move.”

“But why?”

“Rent’s expensive, can’t find a place, don’t want to settle. Take your pick, Sam.” He couldn’t tell Sam about the fires. Not yet. They hadn’t followed him for an entire year, at this point, and Dean hoped they were done. He catches Bobby’s eye, and Bobby gives him a nod. Dean takes that to mean that he won’t tell Sam about the fires, yet.

There’s a silence in the kitchen, and Dean scrunches his eyes shut. He feels what must be Cas’ hand cover his knee, and is relieved by the touch. Cas must not be too disappointed in Dean, if he’s still willing to touch. He opens his eyes, cautiously.

Sam has sat back down, and has his face in his hands. “...Sammy? You okay?” Dean questions, warily.

Sam looks up, his eyes blazing. “You’re asking me if I’m okay? That bastard beat the shit out of you, and you’re asking me? He never called to check up on you, did he? He just left you, out cold on the floor? He could have _killed_\--”

“He didn’t kill me, Sam, I’m right here. I’m fine.”

“Is that all you ever say?”

“What?”

“You’re fine!”

Dean splutters. “I _am!_”

“Well, I’m not!”

“Sam--”

“I just found out that Dad almost killed you because _I left_, Dean. It’s my fault. And all those other times?”

Dean freezes. “What other times?”

“You always had some kind of bruise, or scrape. That one time you burned your arm? Or that time you cut your leg and you told me it was from scratching it on a nail in a fence--”

“Hey, that time it really was!” 

“That time.” And Dean realizes that he might as well have just confessed.

“Fine. Yes, Sam. Dad hit me a little. But he always had a reason, okay? I fucked up a lot, and he put me in my place! I was supposed to watch out for you, and I didn’t always do the best job!”

“You were the only reason I was able to stay sane! Every time we moved, I got so _angry_ at him!” Dean flinches at these words. “If I ever got hurt, it wasn’t your fault!”

“It was my fault because I was supposed to be watching you. That was my job, dude.”

“What about your other jobs?”

“Huh?” Sam couldn’t know about the truck stop and the bars, he _couldn’t._

“The times you were working at those diners? You had to leave me alone to do that. If I had gotten hurt, would that be your fault?”

“Yes! I wasn’t supposed to leave you alone!”

“You were working so that we’d have money for food!”

A quick glance at Bobby shows him glowering more and more but Dean responds anyway, “that was my _job_, I _told_ you!”

“Dean! That was _Dad’s_ job, not yours! It’s not your fault that Dad never left us enough money!”

“I’m the one who spent it!”

“Jesus, Dean! On _food!_”

“And clothes!”

“For _me._ Shit, this is my fault.”

“It’s not your fault. I fucked up, Sam.”

“Remember that time he got home before you?”

Dean remembers what his dad had said to him that night, the words are etched in his memory. _“Were you with another fag like yourself tonight, or did you man up and actually get a woman? You let some guy from school stick it up your ass? Is he the one that socked you one? I should thank him for trying to set you right after you got your filthy hands on him,”_

“Yeah, Sam. I remember.”

“He hurt you for that, didn’t he?”

“Sam, I was late.” It was as good as a confession.

Dean can tell that Sam is fuming, but he doesn’t know how to make it better. He’s at a loss, and he doesn’t know what to do. He knows that parents aren’t supposed to do the shit their dad did to him, but he knows that Dad did what he did so that Sam was safe. 

“Dean.” Cas’ voice was soft, and Dean turned his head towards him. “Dean. You know your father should not have done that to you.”

“Yeah,” Dean responds, voice soft and hoarse. “But--”

“No ‘buts’, Kid.” Bobby cuts in. “John had no right to put all that on you. Shit, if I had known half of that, I would’ve come and picked you boys up and we could’ve avoided this whole mess.”

_But the fires_, Dean thinks, _the fires still would’ve followed me. We wouldn’t have been safe._

“What’s done is done,” Cas says, his voice strong. “It’s in the past, and we can’t change it. But we can learn from it.”

Dean snorts. “Yeah, alright Rafiki. You’ve got a point.”

Sam catches his eye, his own eyes red-rimmed from crying. Dean wants to take it all back, but it’s out there now. “Dad really hasn’t tried to talk to you all this time?”

“No.”

Bobby answers, too. “I yelled at him in his voicemail, but he never called me back, that son of a bitch. He comes around here, I’ve got some buckshot with his name on it.”

Dean feels like he’s gone ten rounds this morning. He takes a deep breath. “Sam, I’ll show you the van this afternoon. She’s great, you’ll love her. But, uh. I need a nap. I never wanted you to know about this, and I gotta recalibrate my brain or somethin’.”

“Yeah, okay, Dean.”

He stands, and Cas’ hand falls away from his knee. “I’ll join you in a few minutes, okay? I want to clean up in here a little.”

“Oh, I should help.”

“Nah, we’ve got it. You cooked.”

“I made the mess.”

“You cooked, we clean. Go relax, boy. We’ve got this.”

Dean trudges back to his van and crawls into bed. When Cas joins him ten minutes later, Dean turns into Cas’ chest, and cries.

________________________

_The guy had been rough, but Dean had never been paid so much for a fuck in the bathroom._

_Even if he hadn’t exactly been prepared for it. The guy didn’t even use a condom._

_Still, six hundred bucks would go a long way, even if he had to stop on the way home to buy some extra aspirin. _

_Dean now had $6,500 to send with Sam to whatever school he was going to, and that felt pretty good._

_Even if he spent an hour sitting on the floor of the shower, trying to wash the feel of that guy’s hands off his body. Sam gave him odd looks when he went quiet for a few days, but Dean was able to push through and start talking again, which seemed to lower Sam’s suspicious looks._

________________________

They spend the rest of Sam’s visit tip-toeing around the revelations of that morning, but by the time Same leaves the next day, they’ve more or less begun to repair their relationship. Dean promises to keep Sam more in the loop, and Sam gets him to promise to come visit so that he can meet Jess.

He and Castiel return to the city for New Year's Eve, and Dean parks his van in the little garage that’s attached to Cas’ unit. They ring in the new year together in Cas’ bed.


	10. blaze.

The first week of January, right before classes start up again for the spring semester, Cas wakes Dean from a deep sleep.

“Dean!” He groans, and Cas shakes him harder. “Dean!”

“Mmmm sleeping. Go ‘way.”

“No, wake up.”

“Wha’s goin’ on?”

“We’ve never been on a date!”

“Huh?”

“How can we be dating if we’ve never been on a date?” 

Dean frowns at his boyfriend, confused at the concern. “Cas, we can go on a date.”

“Really?” Cas seems elated. As if Dean would say no to spending time with him. 

“Well, yeah. You plan it, though, I’m tired.”

“I can plan it.”

“Good”

Dean settles down and is almost asleep again, when Cas says “--should we go to a museum?”

Dean groans again.

“Okay, okay, I’ll plan it.”

“Quietly. Sleep, now.”

“Yes. Okay.”

________________________

The day of their date, Cas is worried. Dean has been up since four in the morning, but he agreed to go out with Castiel that afternoon. The week has been intense, with classes starting and getting set up for labs, but Castiel is the TA for Dean’s genetics class, and he intends to help Dean study as much as he needs to. (On a video chat with Sam, after learning that Castiel is Dean’s TA, Sam tells Castiel, “Don’t you dare let him take advantage of that, Cas!”

“Dude! How would I even take advantage of that?”

“He could give you the answers to tests!”

“Would you give me the answers to tests?”

“Of course not.”

“See? Cas wouldn’t do that. We’re in our last semesters, Sam. Why the hell would we jeopardize that and risk getting kicked out for cheating?”)

Castiel looks over at Dean’s tired face. “Are you sure?”

“Dude, I told you I’m sure. Where’re we going?”

“It’s a surprise.”

Cas had picked up a Zipcar earlier in the day, since their destination is not in walking distance, and Dean’s van doesn’t get the best gas mileage. Besides, Castiel wants to keep it a secret. 

Dean naps in the car in the time that it takes to get to the destination. Castiel is still worried that Dean hasn’t slept enough; he was up late the night before studying, and got up so early this morning. Dean perpetually has dark circles under his eyes, and sometimes have that pink coloring to them, which gives Castiel the impression that Dean sleeps far less than he should. He’s almost never asleep when Castiel is awake, at least. And Castiel is a doctoral student. He’s always awake.

When they arrive, Castiel parks the car, and nudges Dean awake.

“Hey. We’re here. Are you sure you don’t want to just go to bed?”

“No, I wanna see where-- is this a museum? Ice cream?”

“Welcome to the Museum of Ice Cream!”

“Wow. This is a thing? I mean, clearly it’s a thing. What?”

“Ready?”

“Uh, fuck yeah, I am.”

They walk through the pink doors, and immediately, Dean and Cas are assaulted by… “Pink. That’s so much pink.”

They walk through the different rooms, from the gummy garden where there are foot-tall statues of gummy bears, and giant macarons, all inside a room with candy-colored striped walls. It’s a lot to take in. The rainbow room has walls painted with so many colors, and a white unicorn with a gold horn tucked away in one of the sides. Castiel insists on taking pictures of Dean’s reactions to things, and they snap a selfie in every single room. Dean’s favorite is the sprinkle pool, where they take off their shoes and take photos of their toes buried under millions of rainbow sprinkles. He makes Cas make a “sprinkle angel” and takes a photo of him sprawled on his back.

Castiel buys them ice cream at Marey’s Diner, and Dean can’t resist getting the “sprinklepool” flavor, and Castiel gets “churro churro”. They share their flavors, and Dean is smiling so big that Castiel wishes to remember it forever. Dean should always smile this much. 

“Let’s keep going. I heard there’s an ice cream sandwich swing!” Castiel pulls Dean along, who laughs and follows him.

They find the ice cream sandwich swing, and Dean gets an employee to take about a thousand pictures of them on the thing. They play with the magnetic letters in the cherry cloud spinner room, Dean spelling out “DEAN WAS HERE,” predictably, while Castiel attempts to find all of the letters for the chemical composition of honey.

“You’re a nerd,” Dean shakes his head fondly when he realizes what Castiel is doing.

“You recognized the composition, Dean. Who’s the nerd here?”

At the end of the museum. Castiel and Dean spend some time at the sprinkle shower, blowing compressed air at each other.

“We have to get all the plastic sprinkles off, Dean. I read that people aren’t being careful enough to get them all off, and so they’re ending up in the trash and it’s becoming an environmental problem,” Castiel says and he blows more tiny pieces of plastic from Dean’s pant leg, “I won’t contribute to that!”

After the Museum of Ice Cream, it’s nearly 7:00, and Dean’s stomach is growling. Castiel ends up taking them to a Vietnamese restaurant down the road once he realizes that Dean has never had Phở. They order huge bowls along with lettuce wraps and lemongrass iced tea, and Dean devours his entire dish after he confesses to Castiel that he doesn’t think he’s had anything to eat besides ice cream all day.

After dinner, they return the Zipcar and walk back to Castiel’s apartment.

“I had a great time, Cas.”

“I’m glad.”

“I really didn’t expect that. I thought you’d take me to the modern art museum or something.”

“I like the modern art museum, but I thought this would be more fun.”

“I haven’t been there, we’ll have to go. This was definitely the most… unexpected date I’ve had. Usually my dates are like, dinner and drinks. Or we go see a movie.”

“You’ll have to think of something to do for our next one, then.”

“Don’t think I can top this.”

“You don’t need to top it. It’s not a competition.”

“I guess. I’ll think of something, though. Too bad I didn’t have my good camera on me for today. I bet those would’ve been awesome pictures with my Nikon.”

“I didn’t realize you had a better camera.”

“Yeah. Figured if I’m going to travel around so much, might as well document it. Made a friend in LA almost right at the beginning, Charlie? She taught me how to use the DSLR and hooked me up with some editing software along with a new computer.”

“A new computer?”

“Yeah. She saw my old one and basically had a heart attack. It’s what she does for a living, software design, modifying hardware. I’m pretty sure she’s a hacker too, but I didn’t want to question her. I have no idea how she got me some of the software she did. Traded her some construction work on her roof for the new computer and stuff.”

“She sounds great.”

“She is. I ran into her at ComicCon in San Diego and she basically dragged me back to LA with her once she found out that I always wanted to learn to use better cameras… it all sort of unfolded from there.”

Castiel smiled at Dean and hooked his arm around his waist while they walked. Dean wrapped his around Castiel, and they meandered up and down the hilly streets. 

“Dean?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you work tomorrow?”

Dean snorted. “I always work. I took this half of today off just for this date, you know?”

“I know,” Castiel grinned, feeling warm inside. Dean took time off of his incredibly busy schedule to spend time with him, even though they already spent most of their time together. It was more than touching. “I just wondered if you could stay tonight, or if you had to go out to Berkeley or something.”

“Nope. I’m opening at Recoult in the morning for brunch. Benny hired someone new to put together a website or something, and she’s going to work part-time. He wants me there to help train her.”

“Maybe I’ll see you at brunch, then.”

Dean gives him a wink. “I’ll save a seat at the bar for you.”

________________________

It’s Charlie.

Dean can’t believe it’s _Charlie_.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were moving here?”

“And ruin the surprise? I made Benny not tell you, either!”

“How on earth…”

“I told Benny I knew you, that you were like, my bestie. Of course, he’d heard you talk about me, which, _Dean_, I didn’t know you cared! So he asked me if I’d fix up the website, which obviously I will, and then I asked if he had any openings in his staff, and he said he was thinking about hiring someone on part-time, which is _perfect_, so now I can work on my web design stuff when I’m not working here.”

“Jesus. I’m so glad to see you.”

“Glad to see you too.”

“Where are you living?”

“Currently staying at a friend’s house. She’s moving to Italy next week, and I’m going to sublet from her, which is amazing timing, don’t you think?”

“Wow.”

“Alright, bestie. You gonna show me the ropes, or what?”

“Oh, yeah. Follow me. We’re open all the time, obviously, but brunch starts in like 20 minutes, that’ll be enough time for me to show you some of the stations and the setup. Then Benny said he’d just have you shadow me for the brunch rush, which…”

“Which…”

“You’re gonna meet Cas.” 

“CAS IS COMING? SHUT UP!” She hits Dean on the arm with the back of her hand in her excitement, and Dean winces, knowing what’s coming next.

“And, uh. There’s more.”

“You’ve been holding out on me.”

“We’re, uh. We’re together. Like, dating.”

Charlie launches herself at Dean, a tiny red blur of squealing, and Benny pokes his head out to see what’s going on.

“Don’t worry, Benny.”

“Uh.”

“Told her about me and Cas.”

“Gotcha. Get to work, brother.”

“Aye aye, captain. C’mon Charlie, lemme show you the mimosa extras. We always run out in the front.”

________________________

Dean is being followed by a redhead when Cas walks in the door. Cas waves to him, and Dean points over at his bar stool. 

The redhead looks very excited and hits Dean on the arm. Cas is puzzled, but waits for Dean to come over and explain.

“Hey, Cas. You want crepes?”

“Yes, please. Garden, this time.”

“You want one honey and cheese?”

“Of course. Who’s this, Dean?”

“I’m Charlie!” the woman responds, in lieu of Dean. Wait, she’s Charlie?

“Charlie? Like, _the_ Charlie?”

“Dean, it’s like I’m famous!” 

“Yeah, slow your roll, Charles. I’ve mentioned one of my friends to the other two people I’m friends with. It’s not famous when it’s just us.”

“_Famous_, Dean. You love me.”

“Yeah, Charlie. Put this order in for Cas. Remember how?”

“Got it.”

Castiel watches them, amused. For all that Dean says they haven’t spent a lot of time together physically, they’re obviously very close friends. They don’t have much time to talk as the brunch crowd rushes around them, but Castiel pulls out his e-reader and opens up the file for the book he had started the other day. Charlie and Dean stop by to refill his mimosa and coffee, and Dean brings him his honey and cheese crepe, but it’s not until the restaurant has mostly emptied that they get to talk for longer.

“How was your brunch?”

“Good, as always. I didn’t ask who was cooking. If it’s Gabriel I might beg for a cinnamon bun.”

“You’re in luck. I’ll grab it for you.” Dean steps back into the kitchen to harass Gabriel for a pastry, and he hears Gabriel shout, “_who the fuck orders a cinnamon bun at the end of brunch? It’s my brother, isn’t it?”_ and he has to suppress a chuckle.

Charlie comes to stand in front of him.

“So. You’re the guy who’s stolen my bestie’s heart.”

“Uh.”

“It’s okay. I looked you up. And I gotta say, I like you.”

“You looked me up?”

“I’m pretty handy with a computer.”

“What are you talking about?” Dean comes back out behind the counter, obviously catching the end of Charlie’s statement.

“I believe Charlie was telling me that she looked me up.”

“Charlie! You did a background check?”

“Had to make sure he was the real deal, Dean. You’re in luck. I like him.”

“I feel sort of like my privacy has been invaded.”

“I only do them for people I like, Cas. Feel honored.”

“Alright. Well. Dean, I was going to ask if you wanted to have dinner at my place tonight.”

“Can’t, Cas. Gotta study for that quiz.”

“There’s no quiz.”

“Charlie, you’re me. Your TA is your boyfriend, and you say to him, ‘Hey, I noticed that every time we finish a chapter in this textbook that our professor wrote, he quizzes us on the content. So there’s going to be a quiz tomorrow, right?’ And your boyfriend says:”

“There’s no quiz.” Castiel hides his grin behind his coffee.

“So I ask you this, Charlie. Is there a quiz tomorrow?” 

“There’s a quiz tomorrow.”

“See?”

“My TA is such a hardass.”

“You know I’d help you study.”

“He won’t help me cheat, though.”

“You don’t want to cheat.”

“Nah. I don’t. Alright, my shift’s over. Off to the library. See you in class tomorrow?”

“See you tomorrow. There’s no quiz.”

“I don’t believe you. Tomorrow, Chuck?” Charlie nods. He pecks Cas on the cheek, grabs his bag, and heads out the door.

Castiel and Charlie watch him as he leaves. Charlie sighs, “Dude, you’ve got it bad.”

He nods, “I really do.”

Castiel spends the evening making sure that his order for the copies of the quiz tomorrow (he totally lied to Dean, there’s a quiz) went through. He gets the verification that they’re in the professor’s mailbox, and when his stomach grumbles, he goes to check his fridge, but finds nothing he wants to eat. 

He walks the five minutes to Recoult, thinking that he’ll bring Dean a snack at the library, when who should he see through the door, but Dean. Serving customers.

Castiel furrows his brow. What happened to studying? He pushes through the door and observes Dean for a moment before he’s noticed. He’s got a dark shadow on the underside of his jaw that looks like a bruise, which definitely wasn’t there when he said goodbye to Dean earlier that day. And the dark circles under his eyes look even more prominent just above Dean’s sharp cheekbones. Castiel’s noticed that Dean is thin, but under the light of the counter, he looks thinner than Castiel has previously noticed. Surely someone of Dean’s build should have more muscle than Dean currently has, and it worries Castiel. Was he always this skinny?

Dean looks up, and notices Castiel standing a few feet away. He looks a bit sheepish, and Castiel approaches the counter.

________________________

“Um. Hey, Cas.”

“Hello, Dean. How is studying going?”

“Okay, I get that you’re mad. But Cole called in sick because he has the flu, and Benny needed someone on the register for his shift, and Charlie doesn’t really know what she’s doing yet--”

“I’m not mad, Dean,” he huffs, and he looks frustrated. “How on earth do you have time to do your schoolwork? Or sleep? Or eat?”

“Oh, you know. Sleep when you’re dead and all that.”

“Dean, I’m worried. This isn’t healthy.”

“Cas, I’m fine, I’m taking care of it.”

“Who’s taking care of you?”

“No one needs to take care of me. I take care of myself.” _But you definitely help,_ Dean wants to add. “It’s college, no one’s healthy.”

Castiel looks at him, and Dean wonders what he sees. He knows he looks tired, but it’s nothing. He’s been working extra shifts lately, because since this thing started with Cas he hasn’t been taking extra customers on the side. Gordon was pissed this afternoon when he caught up with Dean to schedule something and Dean turned him down. He hoped the bruise wasn’t too obvious, but he hasn't been able to check it in the mirror since he arrived. The way Cas’ eyes glance down at his jaw makes Dean think that there must be a mark, and he flinches. Can opens his mouth to say something, but Dean cuts him off.

“Cas, I’ve been working and going to school full time for a year and a half. I have these twelve credits left, and then I’m done.”

“Gabriel told me you worked a double shift the other night.”

“You asked Gabriel about me?” God damn it, Gabriel really needs to keep his pie hole fucking _shut_.

“No. But he said you were looking tired, and you really are, Dean. If Gabriel is concerned, then there’s something wrong.”

“Ah, I knew you only liked me for my looks.”

Cas frowns. “Dean, I’m serious. I’m worried.”

“I get that, but seriously, I’m fine. I’m done in an hour, and then I can get back to the library and study. I’ll see you in the morning.” A customer steps up behind Castiel and clears his throat, so he steps aside. They pause their quiet not-quite-argument so that Dean can take his order, and when the guy goes to sit down, Cas jumps right back on the topic.

“Where are you parked tonight?”

“Behind Benny’s. He let me plug into the electric to charge my battery.”

“Come home with me.”

“Dude, I don’t know how many times I can say this, but I’m _fine._”

“I can help you study for the quiz that definitely isn’t happening tomorrow.”

“I fucking knew it. It’s on the last chapter, right?”

“I’m not saying anything. Please?”

“Alright. You gonna hang here, or do you want me to meet you there?”

“You’re done in an hour?”

“Yeah. Like 50 minutes, really.”

“I’ll wait here. You have your book? I’ll quiz you now on the chapter basics.”

“So it _is_ on the last chapter.”

“_Dean._”


	11. heat.

  
_Oh, we won't let go, we'll be soaked to the bone_   
_Baptized by truth, we will reap what we sow_   
_Build our own higher ground when the rain's coming down_   
_This is worth it to me, Saint Honesty_

The next morning, Cas wakes to find Dean already gone. There’s a note on his pillow:

_Cas,_

_Got a call from a buddy whose friend called in sick at the docks this morning and he needs a hand so I’m unloading fish (gross, but it pays). I’ll be done by 7, and I’ll see you for the quiz at 8!_

_Dean_

Cas lowers his eyebrows in consternation. Dean must’ve gotten up before four to make it to the docks on time. And they didn’t even get to bed until one. 

He’s not sure Dean can keep going like this. And he’s willing to bet that he didn’t take anything to eat, or buy anything to eat on the way. And Dean will forget to get anything before class, too. He’s always in a rush to get to the next place, he never even pauses to let himself get hungry. When Castiel reminds him to eat, Dean is always enthusiastic, but unless he’s reminded it seems to fall by the wayside.

When Castiel gets to the lecture hall (stack of quizzes in hand), Dean is sitting in a desk near the stairs on the far right. And he’s fast asleep.

Castiel is 20 minutes early to the lecture, so he takes a quick trip out to the vending machines in the hallway, and buys Dean a muffin. He slides down to the next machine and buys a coffee. When he goes back into the lecture hall, he wakes Dean, gently.

“Dean. Hey. Wake up. It’s almost time for class, and I got you some breakfast.”

Dean jerks awake, and looks blearily at Castiel. “Oh, hey. Sorry, was I asleep?”

“Yes. Here, I brought you some breakfast.”

“Didn’t have to do that.”

“Did you eat?”

“Uh. No?”

“I didn’t think so. Dean, you need to eat.”

“I eat! I love to eat.”

“I know. But you forget all the time, and I worry.”

“Don’t worry ‘bout me, I’m good. I got my man to bring me breakfast, after all.” He leans in and gives Castiel a kiss, which makes him smile. 

“Eat your breakfast. You were up early.”

“Yeah, but I made three hundred bucks. Worth it.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. S’good work. My shoulders hurt though.”

“I bet. You ready for the quiz?”

“I knew there was going to be a quiz.”

“Yes, I know, you’re very smart. You have tonight off, right? I could give you a massage, handsome.”

“I wish. Nah, that’s tomorrow. Tonight I have an overnight at Recoult. Kind of okay, though. Got time to study for the stupid lab test next week.”

“Which one is that?”

“Cadaver lab.”

Castiel makes a face. “Ew. That’s why I went into microbio you know. Dead bodies.” He shudders.

“Don’t be such a baby.”

“They _smell_.” 

“They sure do.”

“I’ll stick to micro, thank you. Good luck on the quiz. Will I see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, you want me to come over after my shift at Bobby’s?”

“Yes, please.”

“Then yes. See you tomorrow. Can I get that massage tomorrow?”

“Maybe.”

________________________

That evening, Cas is having a bout of insomnia.

He had walked by Recoult on his way home and saw Dean studying through the window. Dean was at the counter, nose buried in his book, highlighter at the ready. He had waved, but Dean didn’t see him.

Castiel really is worried about Dean. Last semester Dean had obviously worked hard, but it’s only the third week of classes, and Dean is already so buried in books and work that Castiel is afraid he’s going to burn himself out. His worry about Dean’s eating habits led him to think about how he could help, but beyond making sure that Dean ate at least once a day, Castiel is coming up empty. Dean doesn’t want to cut back on the hours he works, and in fact has seemed to increase them this semester. Castiel just can’t figure out _why_.

Tonight’s insomnia might have been brought on by worry.

As long as he’s awake, Castiel figures he might as well be productive. Gearing up for a caffeine-fueled day, he packs his bag with some study materials and his computer and headed out to Recoult. If Dean’s there studying, maybe he wants a buddy. It’s three in the morning, but Cas is wide awake.

When he enters the cafe, he sees Benny working behind the counter, with Dean sprawled out on the couch that lives against the back wall. 

“What brings you in at this time of night, brother?” Benny’s voice is relatively soft, obviously hoping to not wake his slumbering employee.

“Do you know that Dean is asleep over there?”

“Sure do. Don’t wake him. That boy doesn’t sleep near enough. He’s going to complain and tell me to dock his pay when he wakes up.”

That startles Castiel. He thought Benny would be more likely to simply send Dean home in that case. “You’re going to dock his pay?”

“Did I say I was actually going to dock his pay?” Benny winks at Castiel, and he’s glad Dean has Benny looking out for him.

“I’m worried he’s not taking care of himself,” Castiel confesses to Benny, watching the man wipe down the pieces of the espresso machine he’s dismantling and cleaning.

Benny responds with an observation. “He’s working too much.”

“He says he needs the money.”

“Well, he’s a free man. I just don’t want to see him working himself to death. I’d give him the time off if I thought he’d actually take it. So, what brings you in so late?”

“Couldn’t sleep. I figured if Dean was here studying, I should get some work done too.”

“Can I get you something to eat?”

“How about just some tea for now? I have a feeling I’m going to need to caffeinate strongly tomorrow. No reason to start too early.”

“You got it.” Castiel settles in the armchair next to the couch where Dean is sleeping, and opens his laptop.

________________________

Dean plans the next date. He plans to take Castiel to the Cheese School. He went back and forth for a few days between the pizza-making course and the burrata cheese course, but eventually went with pizza. It was held in the evenings, and an evening of drinking wine and eating pizza with Cas sounded just about perfect.

It was exactly what Dean was hoping for. There were only five other people in the class, and they each got to make their own pizza, stretching the dough, adding cheese, sauce, and toppings. The chef that was teaching even taught them how to toss the dough. Dean’s almost landed on the floor, but Cas was able to toss his perfectly on the first try. Dean teases him for being a teacher’s pet, but they walk out at the end of the evening slightly tipsy with their bellies full of pizza.

Cas takes his hand and gives it a quick squeeze while smiling at Dean. “That was a fantastic idea, I’m glad you thought of it.”

“There’s a mozzarella and burrata making class too, we should do that sometime,” Dean suggests.

Cas’ eyes light up. “I’m in for sure. Maybe--”

“Hey, Winchester!” a voice from behind them calls. They stop walking at the sound, and Dean turns to see a familiar face heading towards them. He freezes. He’s pretty sure he stops breathing.

This can’t happen here. This can’t happen with _Cas here_. 

“I’m so happy to have caught you,” Ketch, fucking Ketch. Of all the guys, it had to be this British asshole who never takes no for an answer. “A few of the lads and I have about two grand together--”

“Not interested.” Dean interrupts, harsh. “Go away. I’m out.” He sees Cas out of the corner of his eye looking confusedly between him and Ketch.

“What, is this guy paying you more?” Ketch looks Cas up and down, “he certainly doesn’t seem the type, but to each his own, of course. You know _we_ have the money. Now, as far as activities, I know the last time you said you wouldn’t go bare--”

Dean interrupts him with a growl, “Ketch, I don’t want to talk about this. I’m done. I’m not doing that anymore. Get the hell out of here.”

“Dean, what--” Cas tries to interject, but Ketch interrupts him. All Dean can do it stare at his life falling to pieces in front of him. He doesn’t know what to do to make all of this go away. 

“Sure, Dean, sure. Once a whore, always a whore. You know,” and he addresses Cas, Dean frozen next to him in shock, “Dean here looks awfully pretty in a collar. Last time we set him up in a cage, and--- oof! Fuck!”

Dean shoves Ketch back by the shoulder, and then punches him. He needs Ketch to stop, And words aren’t doing the trick, so his fist will have to do.

One glance at Cas shows him with his mouth hanging open, face gone white. Ketch is doubled over, swearing a blue streak at Dean, but Dean’s focused on his boyfriend’s look of shock, chest heaving though he feels like he can’t catch any breath.

“Dean, what-- Dean!” He takes off running, as fast as he can. Away from Cas, away from Ketch. Just away.

It’s over. There’s no way Cas wants him now. How could he? He stops running, because black spots are starting to press in on his eyes, and he still can’t draw a deep enough breath. 

He concentrates on his breathing and leans against the wall while he fumbles his phone out of his pocket. He needs to get away, and he needs a car to do that--

He tries to open a rideshare app, but accidentally ends up hitting “accept” on a phone call from Cas.

“Fuck!”

“Dean!” He hears Cas’ voice through the phone speaker held in his hand, “Dean! Where are you, you just took off--” but Dean hangs up. He can’t face Cas. He can’t do this. Giving up on calling a car, he flags down a taxi that rolls by and hops in.

“Where to?”

Fuck, where to?

“Woah, buddy, are you okay?”

“Fine--” Dean croaks. “Just-- go. Drive.” Where does he go?

Benny. Benny will know what to do. At the very least, it’s somewhere Dean can go and be in the back room, and fucking _breathe_. “You know Recoult?”

“Yeah, I gotcha. You sure you don’t need anything?”

“Just drive. Recoult. Thank you.”

“No problem, buddy.”

Dean wants to scream, but instead, he covers his face with his hands. How did that just happen? This is a big city, how does he just run into a guy like Ketch, one that used to pay good money to tie Dean up, put him in cages. Small cages, big enough for his body, but small enough that he’d be pressed up against the bars. Dean would find bruises in lines across his body afterward, because he was pressed so tightly against those bars. 

And he let them, because they paid him. They paid a lot for the privilege of doing those things to Dean.

The fire hasn’t found Dean in years, but he managed to burn his entire life to the ground anyway. 

When the cab pulls up to the cafe, Dean throws some cash at him and gets out as fast as he can. He pushes through the doors, and fortunately, there aren’t many customers around. He walks straight to the back room, to the employee restroom, and vomits up every bite of pizza and every gulp of wine he had that evening.

“Dean? What’s going on? Castiel texted Gabriel, said you ran off.” Benny follows him in, concerned. He calls out to whoever is working the front “get me a ginger ale or somethin’!” and gathers up some paper towels to give to Dean, sitting on the floor in front of the toilet.

Fuck, Dean forgot about Gabriel. Who has probably already texted his brother back to let him know Dean’s here. He’s gotta run again, but he’s not sure he can stand up. 

“You sick, brother?” Benny stands in the doorway, and Dean hears a voice behind him, “Gabe says Cas is on his way, he’ll take care of you, just hold tight.”

Dean’s entire body tremors. “No. No, Benny, Cas can’t see me, he can’t see me like this.”

“I’m sure he’s seen worse than a little vomit, Dean.”

“It’s not that, oh god. He found out, shit. Fuck, I’m so fucked.” He bounces his knee furiously, trying to distract himself from the rising nausea.

“What happened?” Benny reaches out his hand and touches Dean’s back. Dean jumps and jerks away like he’s been burned. Benny’s eyes are wide, but his voice is calm. “Alright, brother, I won’t touch you. Tell me what happened, why can’t Cas see you like this?”

Dean’s mouth works for a second, trying to come up with the words. “He hates me.”

“I guarantee that Cas does not hate you. That guy looks at you like you can do no wrong.”

“Yeah, well. I did wrong.”

Suddenly, a series of frantic knocks are banging on the door, and he hears Cas’ voice. “Dean! Dean, I know you’re in there, open up. Please, I just want to know you’re okay, please open the door. Dean.”

“Alright if I let him in?”

Dean nods, feeling like he’s going to throw up again. Benny opens the door, and Cas is behind it, breathing heavily. Did he run the whole way, or what?

“Dean! Are you alright? Is your hand okay?”

Dean doesn’t exactly know how to answer that. Is his hand okay, what the fuck? “Huh?”

“You punched that guy, Ketch or whatever. Is your hand okay?”

Benny slides out the door, mumbling something about getting ice. Dean still doesn’t know how to respond. Cas crouches down next to Dean, who’s having a hard time getting himself to look at Cas. He scrunches his eyes shut, and whispers “Cas, just-- just go. You don’t have to do this.”

“What don’t I have to do, Dean?”

“You didn’t have to come here. We’re done, I got it.”

“What-- you’re breaking up with me?” An arm reaches through the door, and Cas takes a can of ginger ale and a bag of ice. He gives the opened can to Dean, who holds it in his left hand, while Cas takes his right and holds the ice to his knuckles, which, huh. There’s a split in one, and a rising bruise around them, but Dean can’t feel anything.

“No, I. You should break up with me, now that you know--” he chokes on his own words, but recovers some, “you know what I did.” He tries to pull his hand out of Cas’ but Cas holds firm.

Dean’s body can’t seem to decide between staying completely still or jittering apart, as bone-shaking chills run through him every few seconds.

“I don’t know what just happened back there.”

He shakes again. Dean forces himself to look at Castiel, incredulous. “C’mon, man, You’re not dumb. You know what you heard. You know what I am.”

“Dean, please. I need to make sense of this. I just-- I don’t understand.” Castiel sits down on the floor right near Dean, still holding the ice on his knuckles.

“Cas,” Dean looks at him, feeling pain with every breath. “I’m a ho-ooker, Cas.” A tremor interrupts him, but he pushes through.

“So you slept with that guy. He gave you money, and--”

“And I let him hurt me and do all kinds of nasty things to me, yeah. And there were others. Couldn’t tell you how many. I stopped just before Christmas, before we-- before we got together. I haven’t had anyone pay me for that since you and I-- you’ve gotta believe me. I wouldn’t do that to you, I swear.”

“I believe you, I do. I just-- how long, Dean?” Of course, he wants to know how long Dean has been doing this. Once or twice is something he could probably get over, but for as long as Dean’s been doing this? No one could overlook that.

“Since I was sixteen?” He hears Cas make a tortured noise in his throat, but keeps going, needing Cas to understand that he didn’t do it for fun. “I needed to pay for shit for me and Sammy, and there were only so many times I could shoplift bread and peanut butter. Dad would leave us for _weeks_, and we needed to eat, so I did what I had to do. He left us money, but it was never very much, and I almost always fucked up and spent it all before he came back, so I had to do _something_. I never wanted to, Cas, but it was the best way--”

Cas stands up. He looks furious, and Dean flinches.

“How-- Why? No, I just, I don’t know what to say.” He runs his fingers through his dark hair, making it progressively messier.

“I know you’re pissed, you can just go. Just-- please don’t tell anyone,” he begs, “Sammy can’t know, and I just want to finish my degree--”

“How can you think-- no, of course you do, you’re always so ready to think the worst of yourself. I’m not angry at you, Dean!” He paces back and forth in the small bathroom, hands rubbing at his face, and then pulling at his hair, like he doesn’t know how to express everything he’s feeling, and can’t settle on a movement.

“I’m not angry with you, Dean. I’m pissed off that you ever had to do that! I’m fucking incensed that your father-- did he know? Did he know that when he left you and your brother alone that’s what you had to do?”

“I, I don’t think so. Sometimes he said stuff like he knew I was with someone, but I could never be sure if he realized why.”

“Jesus. Stand up. I need to hug you now.” He sets the bag of ice aside, and tugs the soda out of Dean’s other hand.

“What--” and Cas pulls him to his feet, wraps his arms around him. Holds him tight.

“That’s where the bruises-- Jesus,” yeah, the guys that buy Dean aren’t exactly gentle. He’s been hurt more than once. “You had a bruise on your jaw a couple of weeks ago, what happened?”

Oh. “That was, uh, another guy. Didn’t wanna take no for an answer. Got pretty mad.”

Cas squeezes his eyes shut, and he looks like he’s in pain. Dean feels like shit for bringing this down on him. “Fuck.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry. I can get my things from your place or-- or you know, there’s not much there, I don’t think. I don’t need it, just toss it.”

“What? Dean, no,” he pulls back to stare Dean in the face, and Dean can’t look away.

“You don’t want me, Cas. I’m all-- all used, and, and dirty. You heard what Ketch said. ‘Once a whore…’ I’m just sorry you had to find out like that. Guy’s an asshole.”

“You’re not a whore, Dean. You’re a person who’s been forced to do what you had to do to survive. Did Sam ever…”

“No, and he has no idea. I don’t want him to. I didn’t want to keep doing it, but school’s expensive, and without _that_ I’ve had to take as many hours as I can just to keep up with the bills, never mind sending money to Sam so that he doesn’t have to worry.”

“You don’t have to tell anyone, I swear. Just, don’t leave, okay? I want you. I want to prove to you that you’re not some broken thing, Dean, you’re so strong, I promise. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met.”

“Liar.”

“Not lying.”

“Then you’re delusional. Fuck, I’m a damn mess. Why would you want this?”

“I know what I want. Come home with me?”

“I have to work tomorrow.”

“Ask Benny for the day off.”

Dean shakes his head, “I shouldn’t, I had today off.”

Somehow, Cas manages to convince Dean that after a night like tonight, which started out so sweet, and went downhill so fast, he deserves a day off. They barely make it out of the bathroom, Dean tucked into Cas’ side, when Benny steps up and informs him that he’ll be taking the following day off of work. Charlie can work the brunch hour, he says, and Cole will be there. He still owes Dean for that time he took his shift when he had the flu.

Dean doesn’t say anything, but he nods. Benny won’t want him in the restaurant either, after this. Cas gathers him up and bundles him out of the restaurant.

Back as Cas’ apartment, Dean feels like he’s falling apart.

“Cas, can you… can you show me you still want me? Will you fuck me?”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to…”

“Please, Cas. I don’t want to think, and I don’t want to be alone.”

“Anything for you.”

________________________

Back at Cas’ apartment, Castiel takes his time. He takes his time stripping Dean of each item of clothing that he’s wearing. Dean closes his eyes as he feels Cas kiss nearly every inch of skin that’s revealed, starting with his neck, then his shoulders and chest, down to his stomach, and when he’s on his knees unbuckling Dean’s belt, Dean pushes his fingers into Castiel’s hair.

Castiel pulls the belt buckle apart, and unbuttons Dean’s pants, lowering them and helping Dean to step out of them. He stands up and kisses Dean deeply, then takes his hand and leads him into the bedroom. 

Cas leads Dean to lay on the bed and then lays down with him, leaning over the top of his boyfriend to kiss him deeply once more. He licks a hot line across Dean’s bottom lip, and Dean obediently opens his mouth and allows Cas to dip his tongue inside. Dean groans slightly, low in his throat.

They kiss like this for a few minutes, and Dean begins to remember something.

“Cas,” he pants, breaking away from the kiss, “Cas, clothes off. Take them off,” he pulls at the offending garments. “Wanna feel you. Please,” having Dean nearly naked and Cas clothed feels too closely linked to many of his experiences with Johns, and while usually he would be able to overcome it, the thoughts linger too close to the surface at the moment.

Cas sits up onto his knees to take his shirt off over his head, and moves back to stand up and take off his pants and underwear in a single movement. Dean leans up at his elbows and watches as Cas unselfconsciously undresses while watching Dean. Dean knows he’s a good looking guy, that his physique is nothing to scoff at, but Cas is _gorgeous._ His body is lean but muscled, his legs well-defined, his hips sharp with a smattering of hair trailing down to a cock that is cut, and well. Dean likes what he’s seeing.

However, seeing Cas’ well cared for body makes him think of his own. He has a soft belly over his muscles that comes from eating too many burgers and not enough rabbit food. His legs bow outwards in a ridiculous fashion. He’s strong from working in the garage, lifting kegs at the bar, walking around the city, but his muscles aren’t defined like Cas’ are. Dean has scars on his body from fights in bars, fights with his dad, customers that were rougher than he liked. Dean has never felt comfortable in just his skin; he covers up with denim and multiple layers like armor, and right now he’s feeling naked in more ways than one.

Something on Dean’s face must show his concern, because Cas lays over him again. “What’s wrong?” he asks, putting one hand against Dean’s face and rubbing his cheekbone with his thumb.

“Nothing’s wrong. You’re perfect.”

“You’re beautiful.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Why not?”

Dean leans into Cas’ hand and swallows thickly. “I’m just not. It’s fine.”

Cas frowns, but leans in to capture Dean’s lips with his own. He lowers his hips down to Dean’s until they both gasp from the sensation of their cocks finally touching one another, even through Dean’s boxer briefs. They roll their hips together for a few minutes, then Cas begins to kiss down Dean’s body.

A sucking kiss on his neck. One on his left shoulder. A series of smaller kisses across his chest, before Cas makes his way down his abdomen and finds himself at the edge of Dean’s underwear. He looks up at Dean for consent, and when Dean nods, Cas hooks his fingers in the waistband and rids Dean of his underwear.

It seems like Cas barely pauses his kissing. He leaves a bruise on the right side of Dean’s hip, and then finally draws Dean’s cock into his mouth. He sucks on the head lightly for a moment, and then bobs his head several times to take him deeper, his right hand more than making up for the two inches or so he can’t reach with his lips.

Cas’ fingers make their way back, at first gently rolling Dean’s balls, making him moan in appreciation, and then as Dean spreads his legs further apart, he presses a dry finger against his hole.

Cas pulls off Dean’s cock. “Okay?” He asks, seeking permission.

“Yeah,” Dean answers breathily.

Cas licks his own fingers, and then urges Dean to open his legs futher so he can begin to finger him open. He starts by pushing his wet fingers back so that they rub in circular motions around Dean’s hole. He brings them back to his mouth multiple times to add more saliva, until Dean’s tight hole starts to loosen up and he can insert a finger. He thrusts it in and out slowly for now, cognizant of the need for lube very soon. 

Dean realizes quickly that they need lube and condoms, and taps Cas on the shoulder to get his attention. 

“Cas, Cas! We need--”

“--Yes, I’ll get them. Don’t move.”

Cas retrieves the necessary items and moves Dean onto his stomach to continue opening him up with the added slickness of the lube. Soon enough, he’s got three fingers within his lover, and Dean is beginning to whine slightly.

“Cas, I’m ready, I swear.”

“Shh, you’ll be ready when I say you are.”

Just then, Castiel finally begins to pass over Dean’s prostate more firmly and regularly, which he had only caught in brief moments before. With each moment of attention to his prostate, Dean feels himself unravel slightly more.

Castiel slowly withdraws his fingers. He puts on the condom and urges Dean to roll onto his back once more. Dean is thankful, because he really wants to see Cas’ face while they do this. Johns tended to fuck Dean from behind, but when it’s a lover, Dean likes to see who he’s with.

Dean closes his eyes at the feeling of Cas pushing into him, holding his knee in the crook of his elbow, keeping him wide open. He slowly pushes in until his hips are flush against Dean’s backside. He leans down and kisses Dean, slow and dirty. Dean’s cock is leaking between his and Cas’ stomachs, but he can’t bring himself to even touch himself. He just wraps his hands around Cas’ arms and shoulders, gripping him and rolling his hips to encourage Cas to give him some friction, dammit.

When Cas sits up again, he brings Dean with him, so that he’s straddling Cas’ lap. He wraps his legs around Cas, hooking his ankles together, and hangs on as Cas begins to move his hips, hitting Dean’s sweet spot every few seconds.

“Fuck, yes, sweetheart. Right there,”

“Are you going to come for me, Dean? I want you to come, just like this, in my lap. Can you come without me touching your cock?” Dean whimpers, but Cas continues, “I think you can. Come on, Dean, I want to see it,”

And with one last dirty roll of his hips, Dean comes between them, eyes closing in bliss, moaning out Cas’ name as his body tenses. Cas fucks him through it, then begins to pull out. Dean links his feet tighter behinds Cas’ back, and says “inside.”

Cas groans and that does it for him. He pulls Dean tightly against himself, breathing into his lover’s neck as he comes down from his orgasm, Dean stroking through his hair.

They kiss softly a few times, and Cas helps his lay back down on the bed. Dean watches as Cas goes to the bathroom for a washcloth. Cas cleans both of them up between kisses, and when he comes back he wraps his arms around Dean, wiggles a foot between Dean’s under the blankets, and the pair drift off to sleep.

Dean thinks it’s going to be far too easy to fall in love with Castiel. It’s going to hurt when Castiel gets bored of him.


	12. warmth.

Dean and Castiel come to a compromise. 

“You can’t keep working and living like you have been, Dean. It’s going to kill you!”

Dean is getting very tired of this argument. What does Cas not understand? “Cas, what do you want me to do? Move in with you?”

“Yes!”

“Wait, what?”

“Move in with me.” At Dean’s shocked face, he pushes forward. “You sleep here more nights anyway. And this way you don’t need to pay for a place for your van. You don’t have to eat out nearly as much as you do. And I want to see you eating more healthy foods anyway. Splitting all the bills will be more cost-efficient.”

“Are you serious?”

“Serious.”

So Dean unofficially moves in with Cas. He calls it “unofficial” because it’s been years since he’s lived with another person, never mind living in one single place without wheels. It feels too final to officially move in, and part of Dean is still waiting for Castiel to decide that he’s just too much work.

Cas lets him park the van in his garage. Dean tells him he could just sleep out in the van, but Cas says “that’s stupid,” and pulls Dean down into his bed.

_Their_ bed.

Days later, Castiel walks in while Dean is watching InuYasha on his computer. Dean is laying on his back spread out on the couch. He sits up when Cas comes in, making room for him to sit next to him and be able to see the computer screen too. 

After a minute of watching, Cas asks, “does that man have… animal ears?”

“Duh. He’s half dog demon.”

“Oh, I don’t know how I didn’t know that,” Cas deadpans, and leans down to give Dean a kiss. “Did you finish your paper?”

“Yeah. This is my reward for finishing it ahead of time. Can you believe InuYasha is leading Kagome on like that?”

“Mmm. Can hardly believe it. What do you want for dinner?”

“Japanese.”

“Because you’re watching anime?”

“It’s thematic! And I want mochi now.”

“We can make that happen. When do you work this weekend?”

“It’s Memorial Day weekend.”

“So?”

“So… Bobby doesn’t work this weekend. Ellen doesn’t need me at the bar. Benny is going out of town and is shutting down until Tuesday.”

“So you’re telling me you’re not working.”

“That’s what I’m telling you. And I finished my research paper an entire week early.”

“Did we just get a weekend to do nothing?”

“I was actually thinking we could go camping.” 

“Camping.”

“Well. My kind of camping, anyway. Have you ever been to Joshua Tree?”

“No.”

“Wanna go? We can sleep in the van. Look at the stars. There’s a spot on top where I like to lay to look. And then there’s a comfy bed to sleep in at night.”

Cas looks like he’s considering the idea for a moment, but he’s smiling, which is a good sign. “I think it sounds wonderful. When should we leave?”

“Well. I have to get the van ready. Fresh water, get some food. Probably change the sheets because it’s been a while since I’ve slept in there. But I could be ready to go in the morning.”

“I think it sounds great. Let’s do it.”

Fifteen hours later, Dean and Castiel pull into the park.

________________________

Laying on top of the van was exactly as starry as Dean had promised.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many stars in my entire life,” Cas said, marveling at the sheer number and brightness of the stars.

“Yeah, it’s really somethin’,” Dean and Cas are quiet for a long moment, and then Dean says, apropos of nothing, “you know, any sane person would have broken up with me.”

“Excuse me?”

“When you found out about… me. What I used to do. Anyone else would’ve broken up with me.”

“That’s stupid.”

“Very eloquent.”

“It is. I stand by it. You did what you needed to survive. That has no bearing on who you are as a person,” he pauses for a moment. “Actually, I take that back. I think it makes you a strong and resilient person.” He turns his head to look over at Dean rather than the night sky. “Most people would not have been able to go through something like that and stay whole.”

Dean can feel Cas’ eyes on his face, but can’t look back. “I’m a mess, dude. I’m not whole.”

“You are a wonderful person. And I love you.”

Dean is temporarily shocked, and can’t say anything. After gaping at his boyfriend for a moment, he blurts, “what? Why?”

“You want to know why I love you?” Cas stares at him with soft eyes, and Dean can see his pity. 

“No. Jesus. You shouldn’t.”

“You don’t get to tell me who I love.”

“No, I know. But you shouldn’t love me. I’m all fucked up.”

“Because you were a sex worker?”

“Yeah, that doesn’t help.”

“I want to know everything about you.”

“No, you don’t,” Dean protests.

“I do.”

“You’ll leave.”

“I won’t.”

“What if I tell you about why I live in the van in the first place?”

“You said your dad abandoned you. More or less.”

“Well, yeah. But mostly, I live here because of the fires.” He’s never told anyone about his, except for Bobby. But Bobby already knew about a lot of his fucked-up childhood, so that barely counts.

“The fires?”

“Yeah,” Dean takes a deep breath, and mentally prepares himself. No matter what Cas said before, this could change his mind. Because your boyfriend being stalked by fire is insane. “I’m not really sure where to start.”

“Is there a beginning?”

“I guess.”

“Start there.”

“My house burned down when I was four years old. My mom died in the fire.”

“Oh, Dean--”

“Yeah, that’s not all,” he takes another deep breath. Might as well get this all out in the open. “I have no idea how many times we moved when I was growing up. But I do know we moved every time there was a fire, and there were fifty-three by the time I was eighteen.”

“What do you mean? Fifty-three fires?” 

“Yeah. Most places we lived, there was a fire. Like, sometimes it was our house or apartment. But sometimes it was a friend’s house. One time it was a gazebo? It’s been restaurants, hospitals, rec centers, schools,” he wills Cas to understand what he’s saying. “Basically, I’m like a lightning rod for fire. Sometimes it’s just abandoned buildings. But it’s usually like an electrical fire? They didn’t think it was arson, but we were usually gone as soon as we heard about it.”

“We?”

“Yeah. Sam doesn’t know anything about it. Dad thought I was the one setting them for a while, but he figured that out pretty quickly. I almost thought it was Dad for a while, but I’m pretty sure it’s not.”

Cas laughs humorlessly “pretty sure?”

“Reasonably sure. I mean, I got punished every time there was a fire, it’s not like he would set them and get mad at me about it. And he wasn’t in town for a lot of them. He worked long haul trucking.”

“Wow-- that’s -- that’s a lot of fires, but it doesn’t mean--”

“It does.”

“You don’t know what I was going to say.”

“It doesn’t mean it’s my fault? It does.”

“Why you and not Sam?”

“Sometimes it was places that only I had been. A hospital, a house, whatever. So, after the fire in Oregon when I ended up with Bobby, I got the van. Figured I could outrun it, and it’s been working.”

“No fires?”

“Not that I know of. Not since the hospital fire after Bobby picked me up.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

Dean feels something shift inside himself. He knew this was too good to be true. Why would Cas stay with someone like this? “I’ll move out.”

“You want to move out?”

“And not burn down your apartment? Yeah.”

“You’re not moving out. When was the last fire?”

“Uh, about five years.”

“There wasn’t a fire at Bobby’s? You said you stayed there for a long time. And you go back a lot.”

“No, no fire there. But I stashed a lot of fire extinguishers and got a couple extra smoke detectors. I stashed some in your place too.”

“_Our_ place.”

“Fine, _our_ place. But I figured if you really want me to stay we have to be careful. I’ll show you where I put them all when we get back. And I’m installing more smoke detectors.”

“If it’s been five years… maybe there won’t be any more fires?” Cas suggests, hopefully. “Maybe it really was your father setting them. They stopped after you cut ties…”

“I thought about it. But I can’t be sure, so I’ve kept moving.”

Cas is silent for a while. Dean is sure he’s rethinking everything, and almost stays silent, but can’t help but ask, “what are you thinking?”

Cas sighs. “You’ve been through a lot.”

“It’s not a big deal--”

“Dean.” 

“Yeah, okay.” They’re silent for a while longer, then, “are you sure it’s worth it?”

“I’m sure. Do you want to go to bed?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” Dean hesitates, so Castiel adds, “take me to bed, Dean.”

________________________

The following week, Cas seems like he’s making an extra effort to show Dean that what he was told doesn’t change anything, that Dean is still the same person he was before Cas knew about the prostitution and the fires, but Dean spends a few days waiting for the other shoe to drop.

He shows Cas where he put the extra fire extinguishers, installs the new smoke detectors with extra loud alarms. 

The following weeks are stressful, because Cas is about to defend his dissertation, and Dean is about to take his last final of his college career, and realizes that he hasn’t made any plans past that.

“How did I not realize this was coming?”

“Dean, it’s okay. You can apply for paramedics courses any time in the year.”

“How do you know that?”

“I might’ve done a little bit of research. The online courses admit all the time, and the courses through the City College start in the Fall but have late admissions. You can apply once all your classes are done.”

“I love you.”

Fuck, that just came right out, didn’t it? Dean had meant to tell Cas under a more romantic setting, maybe after dinner, or on a trip, but he guesses now is as good of a time as any. Regardless of his internal justification, Dean can feel his face turn pink, and he looks away.

Cas is quiet, and Dean takes it to mean that he’s fucked up big time (again), and he rushes to do damage control. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to--”

“You didn’t mean to tell me you love me?”

“I, uh--”

“You know I love you too.”

“So you’ve said.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“Cas, I’ve done nothing but fuck up your life since you met me, how on earth--” he never gets to finish his sentence, because Cas is kissing him fiercely.

“Don’t you-- dare-- talk like that-- about-- my favorite person--!” He manages to get these words out between kisses, and they make Dean feel warm enough that he can’t even figure out a response. “I clearly haven’t been doing a good enough job loving you, if you feel like that,” Cas says as he crowds Dean against the counter in the kitchen. “You’re so beautiful, and talented, and you’re so good. I can’t believe my luck, some days, when I look at you and I see your perfect -- mmph!”

Dean leans forward and kisses him. Partially to make him _stop talking_ (Dean has no idea how to react to those things Cas has been saying), and partially because he couldn’t wait another second to have Cas pushed up against him.

They make out for a few minutes, and Dean works at the fly to Castiel’s pants so that he can get hold of Cas’ cock. He needs that cock in his mouth ten minutes ago. His hand grasps Castiel’s dick, which is almost all the way hard. He squeezes it gently and Cas groans into his mouth. Dean gives him a wicked smile and gets down on his knees, sandwiched between the cabinets at his back and Cas at his front. Cas is holding onto the counter in front of himself for dear life, eyes wide open and watching Dean settle himself onto the floor.

He finally gets his mouth around Castiel’s hot cock, and uses his favorite tricks to bring it to full hardness. He swirls his tongue around the tip, dipping his tongue into the slit. He sucks wet kisses all the way down the length of it, licking on his way back to the tip. He pulls it into his mouth and sucks, hollowing his cheeks. With his hands positioned onto Castiel’s hips, he goes down, down, down, until he’s swallowing Castiel down into his throat.

Dean feels how tense Cas is, and he realizes the moaning man above him is doing his best to not thrust into Dean’s mouth, which Dean does not like at all. He doesn’t want Cas holding back. He wants--

“Fuck my mouth, Cas.”

“Dean!”

“I can take it. Fuck my mouth,” and he opens his mouth wide, letting his tongue go slack. It seems like Castiel can hardly help it, and he thrusts shallowly into Dean’s mouth, moaning.

Dean leans his head back just a little bit further until it’s resting against the cabinet, and urges Cas with his hands to thrust deeper. Soon, Cas is pushing in and out of his mouth, one hand on the counter and one in Dean’s hair, as Dean keeps his eyes on Cas’ while he chokes slightly on the cock in his throat. When Cas goes to pull out after Dean chokes the first time, Dean makes a negative noise in his throat and pulls him deeper.

Dean loves this. With the cabinets at his back, he can’t back away from the thrusts, even reflexively. All he can do it take it, and breathe when Cas pulls out. He loves giving away his control to a partner, rather than having it simply taken away. A small difference to Dean, but an important one.

He feels Cas begin to stiffen in his mouth even more, and knowing he’s about to come, Dean takes a deep breath and gets Cas as deep into his throat as he can, swallowing.

“Dean, I’m going to come--” and Cas does, stiffening against him, and Dean swallows down every drop. When he pulls off, Cas yanks him back up to eye level and kisses him deeply. When Cas slides his hands into Dean’s underwear to get to Dean’s cock, he finds it wet with precome and Dean nearly ready to blow.

Cas turns him around, and pulls his pants down. With little warning, he spits on Dean’s hole, and rubs the pad of his finger all around the furled muscle. Dean moans. He’s so close to coming, just a couple of swipes of a hand would do it, but Cas takes his finger away, and a moment later it’s back, wet and slippery (when did Cas get lube?) and pushing into his hole. Dean groans and pushes his hips back further, his cheek against the counter.

Cas adds another finger, and as soon as both fingers are coated with spit and lube, he begins fucking Dean with his fingers, fast and rough.

“Ah! Holy-- fuck! Yes, please, faster! Yessss!” Dean shouts, and comes, shooting onto the face of the cabinets and the floor below him. He lies panting on the counter top. Fuck, that was a powerful orgasm. Who knew he could come so hard without a hand on his dick?

“That’s so hot that I don’t even have to touch your cock,” Castiel marvels, helping Dean up and get turned around to face him. “I love your cock, but seeing you do that without anything… Jesus, I think I could come just from that.”

Dean blushes and kisses Cas once more.

“Shower?”

“Shower.”

________________________

When finals are over, Dean and Cas decide, they’re going out to Bobby’s. Sam will be meeting them, and they’re going to celebrate. Dean will finally be finished with his degree, Cas will finish his doctorate, and they’re going to move… somewhere. Together. All they know is they’re staying in town, they’ve barely had a chance to look for a new apartment. But SFSU lets Cas keep his place for a few weeks after he’s finished, and they can look then.

Dean’s finishes his shift at Recoult. He says goodbye to Benny and Charlie, and grabs his bag, heavy with books. The plan is to finish up his last final tomorrow, and he’s thinking he’ll get some last minute studying in with Cas. He checks his phone to find a text from Cas: “On my way home from dissertation defense… they seemed happy! Celebrate tonight when you’re done studying?”

Dean grins. Cas had been so worried about his defense, but Dean knew he was going to rock it. He sends back an affirmative with some celebratory emojis, and stops in his tracks.

Is that… smoke?

It is. There’s smoke coming from the direction of Cas’ building.

_Fuck_, Dean thinks, _it found me. It found me._ His thoughts go round and round, and-- Cas! He begins running toward the building, shouting Cas’ name.

“Cas! Castiel! CAS!” He was supposed to be home, but maybe it’s not his building, maybe--

It’s his building.

The scene is chaos, people standing to the side covered in soot, fire engines everywhere. There are huge hoses being unraveled, hooked up to hydrants on the street.

The building is a disaster. Dean can feel the flames from where he’s standing, halfway down the block. There are flames shooting out from the windows, black smoke billowing from everywhere it can escape. He hears a loud crash, and his eyes immediately find Cas’ windows, which are smashed and in flames.

No. _No._

_I did this. This is my fault._

He takes a step forward, towards the building. He needs to find Cas, he has to make sure he’s safe.

A body steps in his path, and he crashes into them. He feels a pinch on the side of his neck, and he knows nothing else.


	13. wildfire.

  
_When pain is all that they offer_   
_Like a kiss from the lips of monster_   
_You know the famine so well, but never met the feast_   
_And home is the belly of the beast_

The first thing Dean notices when he wakes is that his neck fucking hurts. And his mouth is dry. And… is someone singing?

“Heaven, I’m in heaven…”

_What the fuck?_

“And the cares that hung around me through the week seem to vanish like a gambler’s lucky streak… Hey, Deano. You awake?”

He’s tied to a chair. His wrists are zip-tied to the arms of the hard wooden chair he’s sitting in, and given that he can’t move his ankles, he’s guessing it’s the same story there.

Holy fuck, is this real life? He works his mouth, and asks the disembodied voice, “what do you want from me?”

“Did you enjoy your time away from the fires, Deano?” A man comes into view. He’s tall, pale, and has a beard. The sleeves of his pale shirt are rolled up to his elbows, and he’s holding a long knife. Dean swallows.

“How do you know about that?”

“Who do you think set those fires, Deano?” The man’s voice is soft, and nasally. _He sounds like a shitty Marlon Brando_, some insane part of Dean’s mind thinks.

“But-- the fires. They haven’t happened--”

“I know, it’s been a while,” the man agrees, smiling. He walks slowly around the room, in and out of Dean’s sight. “I thought I’d give you a bit of a treat, let you settle into your darling college career. It’s adorable, really. How hard you’re trying. What is it you told your friend Benny? You just want to help people. That’s precious, Deano,” he looks at Dean like one would look at a puppy who learned a new trick.

“But we both know all too well the darkness inside you, don’t we? I knew it was there the first time I saw you. You didn’t even have to look at me at the park where you were playing, but I recognized a kindred spirit. You were absolutely going to be beautiful, and I knew I could get you there.”

Dean feels cold inside, dread pooling in his stomach. “What are you talking about?”

“I saw you. November first, twenty-one years ago, now. You were on the playground with your mother and your little brother--so sweet. I knew I had to get you away from her, though. She was too soft, her presence would have messed up my whole plan. So I got rid of her.”

“You fucking-- Bastard! That was my mom!”

“Yes, it was,” the man agrees. “But now look at you. You’re broken so beautifully, Deano. I just need to break you a little more. And then you’ll be perfect.”

“Who are you?”

“You don’t remember me? That hurts, Dean. Here I thought we had a connection,” the man tilts his head, frowning, like Dean’s hurt his feelings. “Think back, kiddo. You looked beautiful, on your knees for me. I knew I had to take more. Remember how I turned you around? You wanted it, Deano. Practically begged me for it. You were so tight, and felt so, so good. I got to mark you up so pretty inside, and I left you plenty of money, remember? Six hundred?”

Fuck, _that guy_. That guy that had fucked Dean in that dingy bathroom even though he said he only wanted a blow job, and left so much money behind. That final amount he needed to give to Sam. Dean feels sick.

“I never told you my name, did I? It’s Alastair, kiddo. I’ve been taking care of you for a long time, now.”

“Taking care of me.” Dean pulls at the ties on his wrists, but they hold fast.

“Oh yeah. Let you know I was watching, didn’t I? I set those fires for you, wanted to keep you warm. But they always scared your daddy away, didn’t they? He ran scared when I hurt the people who hurt you. He thought you were setting them, didn’t he? I set that fire in the pizza parlour to clear your name, wasn’t that nice of me?” 

“Real nice, asshole. Woulda been nicer if you didn’t set any fires in the first place.”

“Oh, but I had to. Had to let those people know not to mess with you. Remember that boy who hurt you when you were at that football game? I took care of him, he’s not coming after you anymore, Deano.”

Dean remembers. Nick had shoved him against a wall and basically rutted against him until he came. He beat the shit out of Dean for “being a temptation” and left him there under the stands. He had grabbed Dean so quickly, and held his arm behind his back so Dean couldn’t even move without dislocating his shoulder. It was humiliating, and they had moved two days later because dad heard about a car burning down by the river. 

He feels his breath going short. Alastair had killed that guy?

“Took care of him and his attitude, real quick. The sound of his screams coming from the inside of that expensive hummer his daddy bought him? Like _music_, Deano. Wish you could’ve heard it.”

Dean’s going to throw up.

“But your pop heard about it and ran, didn’t he? He was really good at keeping you under the radar, but every few months you’d pop back up. I always find you again, kiddo. And now, I’m gonna make you mine.”

He walks over to a table Dean hadn’t noticed, and picks up a blowtorch. _This isn’t happening. This doesn’t fucking happen in real life, what the fuck_. Alastair turns on the blowtorch and heats his knife. When he glances at Dean, he gives a wicked smile.

“I’m going to take such good care of you. I’ll carve you into something new, Deano. And when we’re done, you’re going to thank me.”

“Not a chance, asshole.”

“We’ll see.”

When Alastair touches the knife to Dean’s forearm, Dean’s vision whites out with the pain of the burning metal. He feels it right down to his bones, and it feels like it never ends. When Alastair lifts the knife, the pain persists, but Dean is able to breathe through it. He can’t make himself look down at his arm.

Alastair smiles at Dean. “So responsive. This is going to be a blast, Dean. You’ll see.

“No one’s going to be looking for you, so we have plenty of time.”

“Cas--”

He tsks his tongue, and looks down at Dean, in a mocking expression of sadness. “Your friend Cas was in the building, Deano. He’s not going to be looking for anyone. And as far as anyone else thinks, you ran away.”

Cas. Cas can’t be-- but he said he was going home, oh god. _I killed him. Fuck, Cas is dead because of me_. Dean feels the hot tears falling from his eyes, but brings himself to ask, “why would they think that?”

“I moved your van. Looks like you skipped town, tiger. Who looks for a runaway? Don’t cry, kiddo. Poor Cas wasn’t going to stay with you anyway,” he looks at Dean with pitying eyes. Dean hates him. “You’re all used up. You know that.”

Dean knows that, but Cas-- Cas said he’d stay anyway. He squeezes his eyes shut, more tears falling.

“See? You know. Now buckle up. I’ve wanted to do this for a very long time.”

________________________

Castiel is waiting in line at Whole Foods when his phone starts ringing.

It’s Gabriel. Castiel answers impatiently, “what do you need, Gabriel--”

“Oh, thank god, you’re okay, we saw the smoke, and--”

“Why wouldn’t I be okay? What smoke?”

“Your building, Cassie! The whole thing is up in flames!”

“Shit, what? Where’s Dean?”

“He left here 20 minutes ago, he’s not with you?”

“No, shit, Gabriel. I’ll call you back.”

He hangs up and tries to call Dean, but the call is sent directly to voicemail. His phone rings again, it’s Gabriel.

“I can’t get Dean--”

“That’s what I’m trying to say, it goes right to voicemail, we were hoping he was with you.”

“He’s not with me,”

“Yeah, I figured that out, thanks. Where would he go?” Gabriel sounds like he’s forcing himself to be calm, which Castiel appreciates, but right now he feels anything but calm.

Dean has a complicated relationship with fire. 

There’s a shuffling sound on the other end of the phone, and then, “Castiel? It’s Benny. Where’s Dean’s van?”

Castiel responds, “it’s at the apartment, in the garage. Shit. You don’t think--”

“I don’t know, Cas, but I’m on my way down there right now,”

“I’m two minutes away,” Castiel sees the smoke billowing, “oh my god, Benny,”

“Stay calm, cher, he probably went somewhere after work.”

Castiel spots Benny. Benny hangs up and jogs over, Castiel does his best to get the attention of someone on the scene.

“Stand back, please, we need to get this thing contained!”

“Sir! Please! My boyfriend--”

“The buildings have been emptied.”

“Did you check the garages? My boyfriend’s van is in the third one, he might have been inside!”

The firefighter immediately radios his fellows who are presumably the ones who cleared the building. He comes back in a moment with a report. “No vans in any of the garages. There wasn’t anyone in there.”

Castiel freezes. His van was there this morning, He’s sure of it.

“Cas, maybe he grabbed it before the fire started.”

“Then why won’t he answer--”

“I don’t know. Come back to the cafe, there’s nothing we can do here but get in the way.”

Castiel feels like his brain is shorting out. Where’s Dean?

Over the next few hours, he calls everyone he can think of, becoming more and more frantic with every hour that passes. Dean should have called by now. 

Sam is on his way. Bobby hasn’t heard from him. Charlie says he hasn’t used any credit cards, and his cell phone has been turned off. He hasn’t used his wifi hotspot, his tablet is turned off.

Dean doesn’t ever turn off his tablet.

Castiel’s phone rings again.

“Bobby? Have you heard anything?”

“No. How long’s it been?”

“Six hours.”

“I think it’s time to go to the police, son. You sure he didn’t take off in his van?”

“Positive. It was almost out of gas, and he hasn’t been to any nearby gas stations, he hasn’t used his card. The van hasn’t been on any traffic cameras in the last 12 hours.”

“How on earth do you know that?”

“Charlie.”

“Don’t tell the police she hacked their system.”

“I’m not an idiot.”

“Just makin’ sure. Tell me what they say. You’re at Benny’s place?”

“We’re all at Recoult.”

“I’ll be there soon.”

Bobby hangs up. Cas takes a deep breath, and Benny locks eyes with him.

“Police?”

“Yeah. Lets go.”

________________________

Dean is hanging. His toes are on the ground, but it’s difficult for him to get a grip. His breaths are short, and he panics until he realizes he can lift himself up a tiny bit to get a good breath in.

He can’t do it forever, though.

He had passed out after Alastair had sliced a line up his shirt and amused himself by “decorating” Dean. He alternated jabbing him with a metal rod he had heated (leaving circular burn marks on the side of Dean’s abdomen) and making parallel cuts with his long knife on the other side. Eventually, it was too much for Dean, and he passed out.

Waking in a different position, wearing only his boxer briefs is disorienting, to say the least. 

“You were asleep for hours, Deano, I was afraid I did too much, and we’re only just getting started.”

“Stop it. Stop, just stop,” Dean begged, voice coming out whispery and hoarse from his lack of proper breath.

“I can stop, if you want. But you have to do something for me. I want to teach you.”

Dean shivered, and watched Alastair, waiting for him to continue.

“I don’t like watching you get hurt. I want to teach you to do the hurting. And now you’ve got all that fancy education, Deano. You know exactly how much pain someone can take before they go, don’t you? You’d be amazing. And then no one could ever hurt you again.”

“You’re hurting me _now._”

“I’m the only one who’s allowed to hurt you. Your pop’s lucky I never got my hands on him. Maybe we could take care of him together.”

“You’re insane”

“Remember that girlfriend you had? Lisa?”

Lisa and Dean had dated when they were seventeen. She had broken up with Dean right before they left town again.

“Leave Lisa alone, you sick fuck.”

“Oh, Dean. Lisa’s long gone. Her baby, too.”

Her… what? Lisa had a kid?

“You never knew, did you? Your daddy kept you so in the dark, I never even realized. She broke up with you, and you were so heartbroken. She didn’t even tell you she was pregnant, did she? No, I know she didn’t. You would’ve stayed.

“I think that’s the only fire I ever set for you that happened after you left town. She hurt you, so I hurt her. And now she and her baby can rest in peace together, and you don’t have to worry about her anymore.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you,” Dean whispers, his eyes wide with shock, “how could you do that?”

“I did it for you. We could do it together, you know. I know lots of people hurt you. We could take care of them.”

“No.”

“Have it your way. I’ve got something here for you, Tiger. It’s gonna hurt, but I can’t wait to hear you _sing_.” Alastair trails something long over Dean’s shoulder, and Dean realizes it’s a whip. Jesus.

“I ordered this one special for you. It’s got these little things at the end. You’ll see.”

He walks around behind Dean, and lets it crack. Dean screams, the tail of the whip biting into his shoulder blade.

Dean’s felt a lot of pain. His dad routinely beat him while he was growing up. But Dean’s never felt pain like this.

“It’s got little pieces of metal on the ends! Leaves gorgeous scratches along your skin. I can’t wait to see it all flowing. You ready for more?”

Alastair whips Dean, and Dean’s world fades in and out with the pain. He comes to when water is thrown across his back, shockingly cold. He gasps and struggles to exhale, no longer able to lift himself up to be able to breathe efficiently. He’s going to suffocate, and no one is ever going to know what happened.

He gets Cas burned to death, and then Dean will die by suffocation. Practically poetic.

He fades out again.

________________________

It’s been three days.

No one has seen or heard from Dean in three days. He hasn’t used a bank card. His van has only shown up on a single camera and it was while Dean was at work. He hasn’t used his phone or his computer.

He’s just _gone_.

He’s at the station again, Bobby with him, begging for them to at least _look_ for Dean.

“He didn’t ‘run away’ you idiots!” Castiel seethes. Why are they being so obtuse about this? “He was about to graduate with a degree it’s taken him seven years to get!” Bobby puts a restraining hand on Castiel’s shoulder.

“His van is missing from your garage, isn’t that right?”

“Yes, but--”

“He has a history of being flighty.”

“He was supposed to take his last final the next day!”

“We heard rumors about your boy when we asked around. He lives a risky lifestyle, maybe it caught up to him. He’s a runaway, Mr. Novak.”

“What’s going on here?” A bald man wearing a suit comes up behind Castiel and Bobby where they stand, Castiel pleading with the officer.

“This guy’s boyfriend ran away, and he wants us to catch him.”

Castiel makes a sound of protest, but the other man interrupts.

“That so? We don’t deal much with grown men running away.”

“Sir, he _did not run away_. He’s _missing._ He’s been _missing _ for three days, since that fire at the apartment building, and none of these detectives will do anything about it!”

The man narrows his eyes. “Follow me,” he intones, and leads them into a conference room.

“I’m Victor Henrickson, I’m with the FBI here investigating the fire at the campus apartments. You say he’s been missing since then?”

“_Yes_, and he already has a history with fires, so I’m worried that it’s somehow connected. I don’t know how, but--”

“What do you mean, a history?”

Bobby interrupts. “Almost everywhere Dean’s lived for the past twenty years, there’s been a fire.”

Henrickson narrows his eyes. “You sure this Dean isn’t _setting_ the fires? You mind telling me who you two are? You his dad?”

“No. Family friend. Bobby Singer. This here’s Castiel Novak, Dean’s boyfriend.”

“Dean have a last name?”

“Winchester. And he didn’t set those fires. I looked into it. Sometimes it happened days after they left town. Sometimes they barely set foot in town and there was a fire. Last one I know of, Dean was in the hospital for two days, couldn’t even get out of bed. I was with him the entire time. After he was discharged, huge fire. People died. This can’t be a coincidence.”

“You’re talking about the Salem Hospital fire.”

“The very same.”

Henrickson gets up, and Castiel watches him walk around the room to a file box. There’s a board on the wall behind him that he hadn’t noticed when entering the room, but it has photos of his burning apartment. He feels a bubble of hope that finally, someone is listening to him.

“What is it that makes you so sure he didn’t run off? I heard that detective say something about a flight risk?”

“Dean lives out of his converted van,” Castiel answers. “It’s basically a small home for him, but he’s been here for almost two years now. He’s been staying with me, parking it at my apartment’s garage.”

“Why does he live in a van?”

Bobby answers for him. “Boy’s worried about causing the fires. He knew they followed him around, so he figured if he kept moving like his dad kept them moving when he was growin’ up, they wouldn’t catch him. And it worked until now.”

“How long has he been living like that?”

“After Salem he lived with me for ‘bout a year. He spent the next two and some travelin’ around, until year before last, he figured the fires had stopped, so he enrolled in SFSU.

“He missed his last final, Agent. Kid doesn’t go to school for as long as he did to quit one final short of graduation.”

“Makes sense. And it jives with what I’ve got here on the timeline of the other fires.”

“You have a timeline?”

“I’ve been tracking these things for ten years, but these fires go all the way back to about 25 years ago.”

“That’s before Dean was even born.”

“That definitely helps towards convincing me that he’s not our arsonist. What can you tell me about the pattern? Dean ever say anything he noticed about it?”

“Just that his dad made them move every time there was a fire. John’s a long-haul trucker.”

“Dean said something once about them being electrical fires,” Castiel interjects.

“You sure it’s not him? I’m gonna need to talk to him.”

“About as sure as I can be,” Bobby responds. “He thought it was Dean for a while, kept him under house arrest until one happened while Dean was locked down.” Bobby takes off his cap and rubs his head. “‘Far as talkin’ to him, I can get you all the numbers I have for him, and his company. But I ain’t talked to that asshole for five years.”

“Why not?”

Bobby’s face darkens, and he answers, “he’s the reason Dean was unconscious in that hospital in Oregon in the first place.”

________________________

Dean doesn’t know where he is.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been there.

_Cas is dead._

He knows he’s in pain.

Everything is his fault.

________________________

Henrickson isn’t able to get into contact with John Winchester, but he leaves a voicemail insisting that he call back.

Castiel calls Charlie to come down to the station and bring her computer, after he tells Agent Henrickson that she had been checking to see if Dean used his credit cards. She’s in fifteen minutes, and twenty minutes later, Henrickson is negotiating with her that she won’t go to prison for hacking street light cameras if she just tells him what she found.

“No repercussions?”

“Let's just say that you were hypothetically able to check these things, Miss Bradbury.”

“So, _hypothetically_, Dean hasn’t been to any of the gas stations that have cameras within twenty miles, and if his gas tank was as low as Cas says, then he would’ve needed to. _Hypothetically_, his van hasn’t been seen by any traffic cameras since 6:30 the morning of the fire, when it was caught at this intersection,” shed points to the screen, and the slightly smudged -looking face that’ driving the van. “That’s not Dean driving.”

“Print that photo. What direction is he going?”

“That’s the part I can’t figure out. Literally past that turn, there’s nothing down there but empty buildings. And none of them even have electricity.”

Henrickson stops his pacing. “Shit. I think I know how to find him.”

“What? How?”

“I don’t know for sure, we need to check on all of those buildings. We need to see if any electrical is running through any of them, if a generator has been turned on, if anything is running. Norwood!” he shouts into the hallway. A man comes rushing in, looking like he’s waiting for orders.

“Norwood, there’s a photo waiting for you in your inbox. Get that to Devereaux and tell him to check the database for anyone matching that person’s description. He also needs to look for a warehouse or abandoned building in this area,” he circles the area that he’s talking about on a map, “that has any sort of electrical signature that shouldn't. Or even if it should. Get me the list. Tell him it’s urgent.” As the other agent rushes away to do his bidding, Henrickson mutters “he’s had him for three days, he’s gotta show some kind of sign of activity…”

Castiel interjects, “can I do anything?”

Henrickson looks at him, seemingly remembering that the three of them are still there. “No. I’d like you to stay here, though. Officially, since Miss Bradbury’s report was _hypothetical_, you’re still persons of interest. You’re here until we find Dean or we can officially clear you.”

A dozen cups of coffee and four hours later, Henrickson’s phone rings. Castiel sits bolt upright in his chair, eyes wide open while he hopes for news. He’s spoken to Sam and instructed him not to come down, but to wait at Recoult on the chance that someone calls, or stops in, or _anything._ Sam’s not happy about it, but he acquiesces, with the strict instructions that Castiel is to keep him in the loop.

“What,” Henrickson snaps into his phone. “You’re sure? There’re no other buildings?” He nods, listening to the person on the other line. “Get a warrant. Team rides in fifteen,” He pulls his phone away from his ear, ending the call. Castiel waits, barely breathing. 

“We got him. Wait here, I’ll call you when we’ve got it secured.”

“You’re sure?” Castiel can’t get his hopes up, but they’re rising.

“As sure as I can be. Abandoned warehouse is one of the types of locations the arsonist has hit in the past. Always an electrical fire in the official reports, but it’s always a building that doesn’t officially have electricity running to it. There’s a building like that down there. Wait here.”

Henrickson rushes out, and the flurry of activity outside the conference room has Castiel praying silently that it means they’re all rushing to find Dean.

Dean’s been missing for nearly four days at this point. Castiel knows the statistics about missing persons, but he can’t think about them.

“Castiel.”

“Bobby. They have to find him.”

“Castiel, we gotta be prepared--”

“No. They’ll find him.”

Bobby nods sadly, and the three of them settle in to wait.

________________________

When he wakes yet again, he’s in a different position.

Dean has woken and passed out countless more times. Sometimes he wakes and he’s back in the chair, sometimes he’s tied down to a bare mattress that stinks of sweat and piss. Sometimes he thinks he’s drowning, and he can’t see. He’s lost track.

He can’t tell how long it’s been but based on the smell, Dean can guess it’s been quite some time. “Days” seems excessive, but “hours” doesn’t seem like enough.

He can barely hold his head up, but he sees Alastair, again. Smiling. Again.

“Oh, you’re so close, aren’t you? I can stop, whenever you want, Deano. Just say the word. You and I can go hunt down those animals who hurt you and hurt them _back_, wouldn’t that be fun?”

Dean moans. He just wants to be done. He’s sitting in a chair again, but it’s different. It’s metal, and it feels cold and sticky against Dean’s back. He’s still wearing his shorts, but they’re torn and shredded in spots, barely covering him. His arms are pulled behind his back, but his legs are free.

He thinks he should kick Alastair, but he’s barely able to shift his leg an inch he’s so tired, and when Alastair sees him moving, He holds his knife against the inside of Dean’s thigh. 

“Now, now. Don’t get too excited. I had to switch to this metal chair for my next game, and it doesn’t let me secure your ankles. Don’t let me regret that. I don’t think you’d get very far, anyway.”

Alastair is right. Dean can tell that his legs wouldn’t support him for long under his own steam. He can barely keep his feet planted on the floor, his muscles long since given up even shaking. He knows it’s cold in the warehouse. He knows that the fact that he’s stopping shivering is a bad sign.

He knows now that Alastair is right, about most things he says about Dean. He’s not good, even though he tries. He’s used up, for sure. If someone was coming for him, they would’ve come a long time ago. Who would come for him, anyway? Everyone would assume he ran away, because that’s what he does, right? 

The only thing Alastair is wrong about is Dean’s desire to hurt people. Dean’s hurt plenty of people, even though he’s never wanted to. He thinks about Cas, who probably died terrified, and of Gabriel, who is going to have to live without his little brother. He wonders if they had the funeral already.

And Sam. Dean hurt Sam, even though he only ever wanted to protect him. He abandoned Sam to make a life <strike>all</strike> on his own. Dean tried so hard to take care of Sam, but it was never enough, because Dean’s not enough. He’s not good enough for anyone, and there’s no point in hoping for someone to come after him, now. 

But he won’t go with Alastair. He refuses.

Alastair is busy with something at Dean’s back. He hears a click, and suddenly, Dean’s body is rigid, fire burning through his entire body. 

Another click, and it stops, but Dean’s body still twitches on occasion, and he can’t make it stop.

“Oh, that was _very_ interesting. What did that feel like, Deano? Be honest. I’ve always wondered, but I’ve only recently figured out how to get the voltage running through the chair _just_ right. You wouldn’t believe how many times I had to start over with someone new before I figured it out.”

Electricity. Alastair was electrocuting him?

“Yer gon’ kill me,” Dean slurs, and Alastair comes into his field of vision, tutting.

“No, no. This is only slightly more powerful than electroshock therapy. See, I wanted you to be able to _feel_ it, but I certainly am not looking to kill you. Should we try again? We need to take a break after this round, but we can come back another time.”

The machine behind him clicks again, and Dean is on fire. He smells burning. He’s screaming against the fire. He _is _fire.

He loses consciousness, only to wake up with another splash of cold water and Alastair’s sadistic grin.

Alastair turns at a loud noise that sounds like it’s coming from outside the room, and he turns to look at Dean, an expression on his face that you might see on a child who had his toys taken away.

“Time’s up, I guess.”

He pulls Dean up out of the chair. Dean can only lean against Alastair, who’s holding him up by his shoulders, which are still held behind him in what Dean guesses are probably metal handcuffs. His vision continually tunnels in and out, until a loud BANG and the door to the room holding him and Alastair slams open, and half a dozen people in dark clothes swarm the room. They’re all holding guns.

Police. Police are here.

They can’t save Dean, though. Dean’s already lost. Alastair has a knife to Dean’s throat, and he’s holding a glass syringe filled with clear fluid.

“Ah, ah ah. You’re early, boys. You weren’t supposed to get here until _after_ Deano and I left. Who missed their memo?”

“It’s over, Alastair,” a deep voice says firmly. Dean can’t really see who’s talking, but he sounds very important.

“If it’s over for me, it’s over for Deano here, too. And I don’t think you’re after him, are you?”

“Dean, hold on, we’re here to help. We’ll get you out of this.”

Dean wants to laugh. There’s no getting him out of this. He’s meant to be here. His whole life has led him right here. He can only grunt in acknowledgment. Alastair seems to agree.

“See? He doesn’t want to leave. And he’s not. See this?” He holds up the syringe. “Ethanol. Ethanol thins the blood, you see? Deano here is going to bleed out that much quicker when I slice his neck. He could've been something, you know? I could’ve made him so beautiful.” And he empties the syringe into Dean’s neck.

Dean feels the effects almost instantly. He shuts his eyes against the dizziness as the room seems to swoop around him. He feels instantly drunker than he’s ever been in his life, And he needs this to end. He’s hurt so many people, just by being near them. 

_Make a choice, Dean,_ he thinks to himself._ End this. _He pushes himself forward, forcing Alastair’s knife to slice into his neck. His attention diverted by having the decision taken out of his hands, Alastair drops the knife. 

Dean drops painfully. He hears several loud bangs, then a dull thud. There’s a pressure on his throat, and someone is shouting, but he doesn’t understand the words.

He’s carried somewhere.

The lights are bright.

And then, not so much.

________________________

Victor lowers his gun and leaps into action. Stupid kid made it easy to take the shot on Alastair, but he’ll be damned if Dean is going to die on his watch.

“Dean! Stay with me, kid!” He covers the wound on Dean’s neck with his hands to stem the bleeding. Dean is moving weakly and his eyes are fluttering, but he doesn’t respond. Victor hears someone else call for the paramedics that are waiting outside, and when they come rushing in, he fills them in to the best of his knowledge.

“He’s been shot up with ethanol, and the bastard got a knife to his neck. He’s not responding to me, but still breathing.”

“We’ll take it from here.”

Victor passes off the scene to another agent, and climbs into the ambulance they’re transporting Dean Winchester in. He places a call to Winchester’s boyfriend, informing him they’re taking him to Zuckerberg General. The paramedics are working quickly on the man, intubating him and getting him oxygen, giving him medications.

“How’s he doing?”

“He’s stable for now, but he had stopped breathing, likely an effect from the alcohol poisoning. We have no idea how much ethanol he was given, but we’re giving him regular injections of glucose to counteract the effect. He’s bleeding pretty heavily from his wound, but the knife didn’t go as deep as we worried, and it missed his larger vascular structures.”

“So he’s gonna be okay?”

“I can’t be certain. He’s lost a lot of blood, and the real danger is the ethanol. Blood alcohol level goes above 0.4% and it’s lights out.”

Victor nods, hoping it doesn’t come to that.


	14. pyre.

  
_The ocean is wild and over your head_   
_And the boat beneath you is sinking_   
_Don't need room for your bags_   
_Hope is all that you have_   
_So say the Lord's prayer twice, hold your babies tight_   
_Surely someone will reach out a hand_   
_And show you a safe place to land_

Dean’s alive.

He’s alive, but the doctors say that his blood alcohol level was 0.28% at its highest. The paramedics administering glucose and getting him oxygen to prevent his respiratory system from failing were critical in getting him to the hospital.

0.4% is fatal, and Castiel knows this. At that point, not only would his respiratory system shut down, but his central nervous system will stop working. He knows the human body can lose up to 40% of its volume in blood, and he knows Dean lost a lot of blood. He knows that there’s only so much stress the body can be in before it gives up.

The doctors told Sam (because officially they can’t tell Castiel anything, but Sam is his next of kin) that Dean had been burned and electrocuted. He’s got a concussion, and the ligature marks and stress on his wrists and shoulders indicate that he had been hung by them. Dean’s received 194 stitches, and dressings covering first- and second-degree burns are on his arm and his torso. He’s on a ventilator. There’s a chance that if he doesn’t wake up in the next few days that he won’t ever wake up.

He has to live. _Wake up, Dean. I need you._

Castiel’s bloodshot eyes watch Dean’s chest rising and falling evenly. He’s got ten minutes in the room with Dean, but because he’s not family, he’s not allowed to stay in the ICU with him.

Sam will be staying overnight. He’s getting his things from the restaurant, and once he’s back, Gabriel is going to make Castiel come back with him and sleep. He doesn’t want to sleep. He wants Dean to wake up.

He holds Dean’s hand in his very gently, not wanting to disturb the wires and tubing that surround his boyfriend.

Dean’s been stalked his entire life by a psychopath with a fixation. And no one figured it out. Dean’s lived his entire life with this fear, but his stupid, self-sacrificing boyfriend just lived with it, instead of asking for help.

“You’re so stupid. I love you so much. Wake up, please…” Castiel whispers to Dean. Dean doesn’t move.

More time passes, far too quickly, and Castiel is being ushered out so he can trade places with Sam. He kisses Dean on the cheek, gently, and wipes his tears as he walks out of the room to meet Gabriel just outside the door.

“How is he?”

“No change.”

“Sam’s gonna keep me posted so you can sleep.”

“I don’t want to sleep.”

“You’ve barely slept in four days. You’re going to eat something, and then you’re going to sleep if I have to knock you out.”

“Gabriel…” What if something happens while Castiel is sleeping?

“Dean’s gonna need you when he wakes up. So, sleep now.”

Castiel lets Gabriel lead him through the hospital. He lets Gabriel pull him into a taxi. He lets his brother make him a sandwich and send him to bed. Despite his best efforts, Castiel can’t resist the pull of unconsciousness. Gabriel was right that he hadn’t been sleeping much, and now that he’s stopped moving, he can’t do anything but pass out.

Gabriel wakes him hours later, with some news.

“Dean’s not awake, but they were able to take him off the ventilator,” Castiel doesn’t dare to hope what that means, but waits for Gabriel to continue. “Sasquatch says the doctors are seeing movement in his brain scans or whatever. They think he’s gonna wake up in the next few hours. Take a shower, and I’ll take you back to the hospital.”

“I don’t need a shower--”

“Take a shower. You’ll feel less gross, and to be honest, you kind of smell, brosef.”

Castiel grumbles, but takes the quickest shower of his life, and is back at the hospital within an hour. He and Gabriel stopped by Recoult to pick up some breakfast, and are with Sam and Bobby when the nurse comes by for another check up and makes them all leave the room. Gabriel goes back to Recoult, but Castiel promises to let him know of any further developments. Charlie is waiting at the restaurant too, anxious to hear the updates about her best friend.

“He’s doing well. He’s starting to wake, though. Let us know when he does, the doctor is going to want to do a neuro check up.”

The three men hurry back into the room and take seats where they can. Bobby sits on the bench near the window, while Dean and Sam situate themselves in chairs on either side of Dean’s bed.

“He’s going to be okay,” Sam says quietly.

“I know,” Castiel answers. 

The hours tick by slowly. Every once in a while, Dean shifts, or his eyelids flutter. Once, he moves his mouth. Sam and Castiel get excited, but Dean keeps settling back down, and he doesn’t wake.

Another hour. And Dean moves again.

The men watch warily, until they hear a small moan come from Dean. He frowns. Dean opens his eyes slowly.

“Dean!” Sam nearly shouts, excited, happy to see his brother’s green eyes once again, glassy and confused though they may be.

Castiel can’t say anything. He thinks he might in shock, or the relief is so strong he can’t piece any words together. Either way, he sits back while Sam fusses over Dean. Dean is mumbling, and Cas doesn’t piece together the words, but he does hear his own name.

“What? No! Cas is here, look!” Sam gestures towards Cas. Castiel leans forward and takes Dean’s hand in his. Dean looks at him, shocked.

“But-- Alastair said-- he said-- am I awake? You’re really here?”

“Where else would I be, Dean?”

Dean whispers, “he said you died.”

Castiel’s heart wrenches, “Then he lied to you. I’m fine. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

Dean’s doctor comes bustling in, and she looks pleased. “Mr. Winchester, so nice to see you awake!”

Dean makes a noncommittal response, but she continues, “How are you feeling? Any pain?”

“Um. My head hurts a little. My whole body, actually.”

“I can order some more pain meds for you, now that you’re awake. I’d like you to remember a few words for me, can you do that?”

“Uh, sure.”

“Great. Boat, cup, sword. Remember those, I’m going to ask for them in a little bit. Repeat them to me now?”

“Boat, cup sword.”

“Excellent.”

She does a few tests, Dean’s eyes constantly straying towards Castiel.

He told Dean that Castiel was dead. In the fire, no doubt. Oh, Dean. Castiel holds his stare, letting Dean see with his own eyes that he’s right here, he’s not going anywhere.

Just before she orders the increase in his pain medication, she asks, “can you remember those three words, Dean?”

“Uh. Boat?”

“And?”

“Cup.” he scrunches his eyes closed for a long moment. “I’m sorry, I’m so tired. It was um, uh. Sword?”

“You’ve got it. I think I can safely say that you have a pretty heavy concussion, Mr. Winchester, but unless something changes significantly, it seems as though you’ve gotten out of this with your memory intact.”

“When can I go home?”

“I’m afraid you’re stuck with us for a few days, Mr. Winchester. Concussions sometimes take days to develop fully. We need to watch those burns and make sure they don’t get infected, and we want to continue to limit your movement in your neck, given the location of your injury. It’s very close to some important vascular structures, so we’d like it to heal a little more before we let you go.”

“Agent Henrickson would also like to talk to you,” Sam adds. “Do you feel comfortable with him coming by today?”

“Who?”

“He’s the FBI agent who found you.”

“Uh. Yeah, I guess.”

The doctor gives a single nod, pleased. “Alright. Well. We’d like to move you to a different room, out of the ICU. That will happen in the next few hours. Good to have you back.”

“Uh, thanks.”

Dean’s eyes are now watching his hands in his lap very intensely. He’s biting his lip, and Castiel can see his shoulders looking very tense.

“Dean? Are you okay?”

________________________

“Dean?”

Dean looks up, but he can’t quite meet the eyes of anyone else in the room.

They all know. They know that it’s his fault Cas doesn’t have a home anymore. He’s so relieved he can barely think, thankful Cas is alive, but he’s homeless, Dean realizes. They probably know about all of the fires. They’ll know by now what he let Alastair do to him.

He’s weak.

“Dean,” Cas’ voice comes softly. “None of this was your fault, you know.”

“You a mind reader now, Cas? ‘Course it’s my fault. Alastair was looking for me. Since I was four, he said. How is that not my fault? People _died_. I-- I don’t know what to do.”

“Just rest, Dean. You’ve been through enough.”

“Sounds like I’ve been resting enough.”

“He held you for almost four days. You need time to recover. Being unconscious for a day does not make up for four days of-- of what he did to you.”

Dean nods stiffly. They don’t understand, but that’s okay. 

Dean closes his eyes and drifts off.

The next time he wakes up, it’s to voices talking quietly in the room.

“... He was a real headcase. Found his journal, had some crazy ramblings in there about Dean here, some pictures. Real sick stuff. Thought he was leaving messages for Dean in the flames, and when Dean didn’t see them, he’d light another fire.”

“Shit.”

“You talkin’ ‘bout me like I’m not here?” Dean asked, attempting to sound light, but he thinks it came out whiny.

“Just waitin’ for you to wake up, princess,” Bobby grins. “This here’s Victor Henrickson, he’s the one that found you.”

“You were there?” He thinks he might recognize the man, but things got pretty fuzzy towards the end, there.

“Sure was. Glad to see you up and talking. Now, we got most of the information we need from Alastair’s journals, and, I’m sorry, this may be difficult to hear, but he recorded some of the time that he spent with you.”

Dean feels like his stomach drops out of his body. Does that mean that his man has seen what he let Alastair do to him? He heard the things Alastair said to him?

“It’s thanks to Castiel here that we found you. He raised hell down at the station until I paid attention to him.”

Cas didn’t have to do that. It would’ve been better if he had just disappeared.

“Oh.”

Henrickson sits down towards the end of Dean’s bed, balancing his tablet on its little keyboard and clearly setting himself up to take notes on what Dean says. “How did Alastair grab you?”

“Uh, I only kind of remember.”

“That’s okay, tell me what you remember. You want these guys to go?” Gesturing at Sam, Cas, and Bobby.

“No, it’s alright,” they might as well hear it from him. “I, uh. I left work after my shift--”

“Where were you working?”

“Recoult, it’s a cafe a few blocks from Cas’ place. Takes about five minutes to walk there.”

“What time did your shift end?”

“Uh, it was Wednesday, right? So, must’ve been around 3:00.”

He makes a note on his notepad while Dean talks. When Dean pauses, he looks up. “Go on.”

“Oh. Sorry. I uh, walked over to Cas’, because he had just finished defending his dissertation and I was going to stay the night,” he could feel his cheeks turn a little pink, but he continues, “Cas was gonna help me study for my--” he gasps.

“What?”

“My final! I missed my final!” He brings his hand up to his forehead and pushes hard with his palm. He had been so close to graduation and it all went to hell.

“Dean, it’s okay, I talked to the administration--”

“It’s not okay, Cas, I had to take _one last final_ and I missed it? Fucking hell, of course I fucked that up!” Dean is frustrated. His _last _final, and he’s going to have to take the class over.

“No, Dean! I took care of it! They’ll work something out with you, I swear. Dr. Milton already sent me an email that she heard you were back safe, and to let you know that when you feel up to it, you should get in touch with her. She’ll help, I promise. You didn’t screw anything up, this wasn’t your fault.”

“I just-- I was so close.” And Cas took care of it, god, he does not deserve someone like him.

“You’ll finish. I promise. Finish telling Victor what happened.”

He takes a few breaths, remembering where he was in the story. “Right. Well. Cas was supposed to meet me, and he had texted me, so I was looking at my phone, and I smelled smoke.”

“You didn’t see it from the cafe?”

“Nah, I wasn’t really paying attention. But when I smelled it, I looked up and saw it, and it made me kinda freeze, you know? Because I’d been running from it for my entire life, and nothing had caught in so long--” he choked out the words, trying to get the image out of his head. “--I started just booking it for Cas’ because I could tell it was coming from over there, and when I came around the corner, it freaked me out, I could tell it was his building. I kind of bumped into someone and stumbled, felt like a pinch or something on my neck, and that was it. Woke up tied to a chair with that asshole fucking _singing_ in my ear.”

“He was singing?”

“Yeah, that song, ‘I’m in Heaven’. Creepy.”

“And you’d never seen him before?”

This was the part Dean was afraid of.

“Uh, I didn’t realize it until he said something, but I guess I had seen him before. Didn’t know his name, though.”

“Where did you see him?”

“Can we-- can I talk about that later?” His throat feels tight. He can’t look at Sam and Bobby, see the questions on their faces. But he’s sure that Cas will figure out the connection.

“If you like. Did he tell you anything about the fires he set in the past? What did he want from you?”

“Yeah. He uh, wanted me to go with him.”

“Go with him?”

“Yeah. He thought I’d want to set fires and kill people. Said he’d stop hurting me if I told him I’d go with him and he could teach me how to hurt.”

“What did you say to him?” Dean doesn’t think Henrickson means to sound accusatory, but it makes him flinch anyway.

“No, obviously. Didn’t make him too happy. Told me about people he’d killed before.”

“Who did he tell you about?”

“An ex-girlfriend of mine. A guy who beat me up in high school. Didn’t even know they were dead.”

“Can you tell me their names?”

“The girl is-- was. Lisa Braden. The guy was Nick. Didn’t know his last name, but it was in a car fire, in a hummer, apparently. Might’a been Ohio? It all kinda blends together.” Dean feels tired, but he needs to know, “did you arrest him?”

“No. I shot him.”

“He’s dead?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.” 

Henrickson makes one last note and then puts his tablet away. “That was a dumb thing you did, Winchester.”

Dean snorts with derision. If Henrickson only knew… “Which thing?”

“Moving into the knife the way you did.” He sees Sam’s head whip towards him, and hears the wounded sound that Cas makes. Dean guesses they didn’t know that part before.

“Worked, didn’t it?” He feels a bit defensive of his actions because it clearly got the job done.

Henrickson gives him an assessing stare, “coulda died.”

“Yeah,” pity he didn’t, Dean thinks.

“You-- you what?” Sam gasps, seeming to recover his voice.

“Your brother here had a knife held to his neck. Moved into the blade, and Alastair dropped the thing. Shot him as soon as he let go, but your brother got a pretty good slice on his neck for his troubles.”

“Dean! Why would you do that?” Sam sounds shocked.

“Seemed like a good idea at the time. I dunno, Sammy. He had just given me some stuff that made everything seem _insane_,”

“Ethanol,” Cas interjects, white-faced. “Would’ve made you feel drunker than you’ve ever been in your entire life almost instantly. If the paramedics hadn’t given you oxygen and glucose you almost certainly would’ve died. Your respiratory system and your central nervous system would have eventually shut down.”

“Ah. Makes sense. Everything went all… swoopy. And blurry. I think I fell?”

“You did. I shot Alastair and then did my best to slow the bleeding until you could get into the ambulance.”

“Oh. Well, thanks, I guess.”

“I think that’s all I need from you today, you seem beat.” A couple of nurses walked into the room, and Henrickson gave a grin, “just in time, too. Heard you’re movin’ out of here.”

“Yeah, apparently.”

“Well. These boys have my number, but here’s my card,” and he puts it on the tray at the side of the bed for Dean, “give me a call when you’re up to talkin’ more, maybe when you’re outta here.”

“Alright.”

“Hope you feel better soon.”

“Yeah, me too,” Dean’s voice is hoarse. He’s tired of talking.

________________________

Dean hasn’t spoken for two days.

He tries, and a psychiatrist comes and talks to him for a little while, but Dean can’t make any words come out. They prescribe him some kind of drug that makes him feel more relaxed, and a little dopey, but he still wakes in panic periodically, convinced that this is just a dream, and he’s still with Alastair. Cas sits with him until he remembers that he’s okay, that he’s in the hospital, that Alastair is dead. The shrink says he has selective mutism, especially after Bobby informs him that when he was younger he stopped talking after his mom had died.

Dean barely remembers that, but he supposes it could be true.

He cries more than he wants to admit. He’s also exhausted, and he kind of wishes Alastair had taken him out, too. Probably a good thing that he’s not talking, the shrink probably wouldn’t leave him alone if he heard that.

People died because some crazy guy thought Dean would want join him on his psychotic journey. He knows for sure that Nick and Lisa were killed because of him. How many others were there? Dean’s nightmares are filled with faces that accuse him of killing them. Family members of those who died beat him, berate him. His mother calls him a disappointment, a waste. He dreams of the torture he suffered under Alastair, only instead of him, it’s his friends and family, giving him what he deserves for being a murderer.

He wakes up from those dreams sobbing, and Cas has a hard time consoling him.

This isn’t fair to Cas. Cas shouldn’t have to take care of him, not after Dean destroyed his house.

Dean doesn’t even have a house to offer him. He has a van that Bobby now has, after the police were through with it. They found it inside the warehouse where Alastair was holding him.

On the third day of Dean being awake, Cas is sitting with him reading a book, and Dean is staring out the window. His concussion makes it hard for him to watch the TV in the corner, and it hurts to look at words on a page, so his activities are pretty limited. Cas reads to him out loud sometimes.

Dean speaks for the first time in days.

“I tried to count them.”

Cas looks up, surprised to hear Dean talk, he supposes. “What?”

“The people I killed. But I keep getting stuck.”

He hears Cas suck in a quick, shocked breath. “You didn’t kill anyone, Dean.”

“I basically did. But I keep getting stuck at fifteen, because I realized that I don’t know how many people died in Salem, and I don’t know how many fires there were when I wasn’t even around,” he looks at Cas, eyes welling up with tears, feeling utterly destroyed. “I killed all those people and I didn’t even know, Cas. What kind of person does that make me?”

Cas gets up and climbs carefully into bed next to Dean, and holds him. “Shhh. You didn’t kill anyone, love. It’s not your fault, I promise.”

“Cas, I--”

“I know it feels that way. But you couldn’t have done anything.”

They sit that way until the sun goes down, the only lights in the room are the ones under the cabinets by the wall and the light pouring in from the hallway, neither of them having bothered to turn anything else on.

The tears feel like Dean is emptying himself. He’s pouring everything of himself into his grief for those people, and what happened to them, and what happened to him, and when he’s done, there won’t be anything left but a dry shell. He feels Cas holding him tight, crying tears of his own.

“Shhhh. Maybe get some rest? You didn’t take a nap today.”

“Too busy counting,” he responds, slowly and tiredly. He’s exhausted, even though the only moving he’s done is to the bathroom and back since he got his catheter removed. He closes his eyes, and he falls asleep.

________________________

It turns out that John Winchester had called Henrickson back after Sam and Bobby hounded him. Dean hears them talking about it while they think he’s asleep.

“So uh, my Dad called me back.”

“Yeah? He gonna come see his son in the hospital?”

“No,” Sam sounds like he’s barely got his anger under control, “he said that he talked to Henrickson, got part of the story. Said it’s not his fault Dean didn’t keep his wits about him to avoid Alastair.”

“Son of a --- fucker.”

“Yeah. And then he started to ask me about school, like Dean didn’t almost die. Who does that? Who lets their son go through something like that without their support?”

“So what’d you tell him?”

“I told him to never call me again.”

“Good for you, son,” there’s a brief pause where all Dean can hear is breathing, but then Bobby follows it up with “good riddance. That man ain’t ever been good enough for you or your brother.”

Dean thinks maybe John just saw the truth of him before everyone else did.

________________________

Castiel’s heart is breaking for Dean. What happened isn’t even close to his fault, and it was out of his hands, but Dean still feels as though he’s responsible for the death and pain that Alastair has caused in the name of following Dean. He lays with Dean until Dean goes still, and then he stays with him some more.

In the time since Dean had been rescued, the university had provided Castiel with new lodging until his lease for his apartment was up, and replaced his computer and books. They provided Castiel with compensation for his losses out of the insurance that they held on the building. Castiel was always going to have to be out when he was finished with school, but he still has a month until the university needed him to leave.

He’s not sure where he’ll be going, but he wants it to be with Dean.

Dean is discharged four days after he was admitted. Castiel and Sam use a car that Sam had borrowed to take him to Castiel’s temporary housing, where Dean agreed to go. Castiel is relieved because his home is the most central to where Dean’s other friends are. They plan to have someone with him at all times, and this makes it easier for everyone. 

Castiel is worried about Dean. He’s still not talking very much, and much of the food brought to him never leaves the plate. He feels like he’s watching Dean disintegrate, and he feels so entirely helpless to do anything about it. A few days after Dean comes home with him, he sits with Charlie while Dean sleeps in the next room.

“He’s still not eating?”

“He eats a little. Most of the soup I gave him at lunch. Some of the rice I made for dinner, but none of the chicken or vegetables. And he won’t eat any of it without being told to. If we didn’t put food in front of his face regularly I don’t think he’d eat anything.”

“I’m worried about him.”

“We’re all worried about him.”

“I know.”

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do though. Do I push him to talk about it? Should I just wait it out? It’s too hard, Charlie, and I can’t imagine what he’s going through.”

“Too hard?”

“I don’t mean it’s too hard for me. It’s too hard for him. I know he can get through this, but I don’t think he knows that he can get through this. He’s doing better, physically. He can walk around, his headaches come less frequently. His shoulders still get sore, and he’s still got healing burns. But truly, he could go back to living the way he was if I wasn’t afraid for him.”

“You’re afraid…”

“I’m legitimately worried he’s going to hurt himself. It’s probably nothing.”

“It’s not nothing, Cas. You know him. He’s traumatized. He’s not acting like himself, and I’m not sure what we can do besides make sure he knows we’re here for him.”

“I tried to tell him Benny’s holding his job for him, but he barely even acknowledged me.”

“It’s going to take time, Cas.”

________________________

Dean is lying awake, listening to his friend and his boyfriend discuss him while they think he’s asleep. He lets the guilt wash over him. He’s ruining them. He’s ruining their lives, just like his dad always told him that he would if he let himself get complacent. He let Alastair break him, and now he’s breaking everyone else around him.

Dean snorts softly to himself. He’s turning into an emo teenager, but there’s nothing for it. He thinks about what Cas had said:_ “...he’s going to hurt himself.”_

It’s crossed his mind. He thought he’d been hiding it pretty well, but apparently, Cas is more perceptive than Dean gives him credit for. 

In the darker days of his childhood, he’d had similar thoughts of just letting go of the wheel and ending it. Life always seemed like more trouble than it was worth. But the same “what about Sam?” thoughts always stopped him.

Now, though? Now he’s more of a burden on everyone, including Sam. Cas is sick of him. And he said it himself, didn’t he? He’s physically capable, he can take care of himself again. It’s just his own sense of fucked-upedness that isn’t letting him. Or maybe he’s just lazy. That’s what Dad always said, right? Someone says something with that much conviction, he’s gotta be at least partially correct.

When Cas comes to bed that night after unsuccessfully trying to get Dean to eat dinner, he lays down on the bed facing his boyfriend.

“Dean?”

“Hmm.”

“What are you thinking about?”

Dean closes his eyes. Maybe he should just rip the bandaid off? He opens his mouth, but doesn’t have anything planned. Anything he says now is going to come off melodramatic. He doesn’t need to worry Cas more. He shakes his head.

“Oh. I was wondering if you wanted to go talk to the department head next week? You can go alone, of course, but I’d go with you if you wanted. You can work out what you’re going to do about the final you weren’t able to take.”

He shrugs. What’s the point? He missed it, he shouldn’t be allowed to finish it. That’s fair.

“Well. Just, let me know? She’s probably emailed you by now, asking when you’d like to talk about it?”

“M’tired, Cas.”

“Okay. Then sleep, Dean. We can talk tomorrow.” He hesitates, before adding, “can I hold you?”

Dean nods and squeezes his eyes shut. The tears fall anyway, but it hurts less with Cas holding him. He can let Cas hold him one last time.

________________________

The next day, Dean has packed up the small duffle he has with him at Cas’ place while the other man is at work. It’s sitting over by the door waiting for him. He’s sorting his medications at the kitchen counter, figuring out which ones he’s still taking, and which ones can be tossed, and figuring it will at least keep Cas off his case even if he doesn’t plan on needing them long, when Cas walks in.

“Dean? What--” He stops, looking at Dean.

Dean’s got his jacket and boots on. He’s ready to go, and he bets Cas can see that.

“What, uh. Dean? What’s going on? Why is your bag by the door?”

“Uh,” he clears his throat, a little, “I’m gonna go.”

“Go?”

“Yeah. Thanks for letting me stay. You didn’t have to do that.”

“But-- why?”

“I just-- I’m giving you an out. This way you can say that I left. You don’t have to stay with me.” Cas looks like he’s getting choked up, but Dean knew that was a possibility. He pushes through. “I know you probably feel like you have to stay with me, but you don’t. I’m gonna go. You didn’t sign up for this.”

“I signed up for you,”

“Yeah, well. It’s not your fault I lied to you. You didn’t know I had all this shit, you just thought I was some guy. It was real nice that you didn’t kick me out after you found out I was a whore, and found out I was a useless piece of shit--”

“Dean!”

“-- but you really don’t have to. I’ll go away for a little while and, uh. Space. We need space.”

“You want space?”

“It’s a good idea, Cas.”

“How-- how long do you think you need space for? When are you coming back?”

Dean stares at him. Does he not understand? “I wasn’t going to come back, Cas.”

“Where are you going?”

Dean shrugs. 

“Are you going to finish your degree?”

“I mean, I’ll be gone. So, no.”

“‘Gone?’” Cas’ face has gone pale, but Dean pushes forward. This is what’s best for Cas, he’ll see that once Dean isn’t around to screw up his life anymore.

Dean shrugs again. Cas’ eyes are wide open, scared. He’s crying.

“Dean, don’t-- don’t go.”

“You _want_ me to go. I'm smothering you. I’m doing this _for_ you.”

“Do you _want _to go?”

“That doesn’t matter!” Dean feels frustrated. Why is Cas fighting this?

“It matters.”

“No. I don’t want to. But I need to. Cas, I have a plan.”

“What’s your plan, then?”

“Cas! Just let me--”

“No, not until I hear your plan.”

Dean doesn’t have a plan, really. His plan was to drive around, and maybe get so wasted in the middle of nowhere that he doesn’t wake up. Maybe walk into the ocean and never come back out.

“I-- Cas.”

“Then there’s no plan. I don’t want you to leave, Dean. Do you want to leave?”

“You told Charlie it’s too hard,” talking makes Dean feel ridiculous. Speech isn’t supposed to take this much _effort_, it’s just pushing air through his vocal cords. But he feels like his vocal cords are fighting to remain closed and shut off his voice again. He needs to get through this and then they never have to move again for all he cares.

“Of course it’s hard watching you go through this. But I’d rather be with you than not!” Cas storms out of the room and towards the door with Dean following belatedly, confused.

“Cas--?”

Cas picks up his duffle bag by the door and carries it back into the bedroom, where he proceeds to empty its contents onto the floor.

“I can’t _believe_ you think I’d rather you were gone! Dean, I went through hell those three days you were missing, and the days you were in the hospital, hoping you’d wake up, and when you did--”

“When I did, you found out I’m a miserable bastard. Man, I was supposed to die.”

“What?” Cas asks, whispering.

“I was supposed to die! I’m supposed to be dead, and I can’t handle thinking about all those people! I know you think it’s not my fault, but it is. It’s my fault! Everything that happens to me is my fault, do you not see that?” He drops onto the bed and sits with his head in his hands This is more walking around and talking than he’s done in a couple of weeks, and he’s tired. Cas comes to sit next to him.

“It’s not your fault. I know you can’t believe me. But if it was your fault, Victor would have arrested you the other day when he came to take the rest of your statement. You’re not under arrest. You’re a victim. And you’re traumatized.”

Victor had come the day before to get the rest of Dean’s statement telling him about the sequence of events. With Victor’s assurances that none of his family would find out, he told Victor and Cas about how he knew Alastair. How he paid Dean for a blow job, and then took much more than that, but paid him for it. Cas had been horrified, Victor grim, but Dean felt nothing.

“And I don’t know how to help you myself, it’s true. But Charlie did some research for you on trauma counselors, and I really think you should see one.”

Dean’s entire brain rebels against seeing a shrink. His dad trained him his entire life to believe that men take care of their own shit. He squeezes his eyes shut once more, completely drained. He doesn’t want to feel like this. But he can’t even imagine feeling another way. It’s hopeless, and he tells Cas so.

“It’s not hopeless. No one’s trauma is the same, but they can help. I promise. Will you try?”

Dean thinks about this. Will he try?

“I can try. For you.”

“Thank you. Eventually, you can try for yourself, but if you need to do it for me right now, you can.”

“I think I’m going to pass out.”

“You need to rest. I’m going to make something for you to eat when you get up, and I want you to try and eat it all.”

The thought of eating makes Dean’s stomach turn, but he nods tiredly, making a resolution to try. 

For Cas, he can try.

________________________

The following weeks and months as Dean attempts to follow through with his promise to Castiel are hard. 

Dean starts seeing a therapist and a psychiatrist regularly. His psychiatrist Jesse prescribes him some depression and anxiety medications and his counselor Pamela helps him figure out his stuck points and how to move past them. She makes him write out an account of the experience with Alastair, which very nearly has him stop speaking again, first when he writes it out and again when she reads it, but she helps him face it. They discuss together what it’s going to look like when Dean goes to speak to the head of the biology department about what he can do to complete his degree.

When he does finally go talk to Dr. Milton, his professor is there too. They tell Dean that given the previous work in the class, both on tests and assignments, they’ve agreed to base his performance on all completed work. He doesn’t have to take the final. He receives his degree in the mail four weeks later, and all Dean can do is stare at the piece of paper sitting on top of its envelope.

He’s returned to work at Bobby’s and at Recoult. He often appreciates having the counter between him and the customers at Recoult, and Bobby lets him minimize the amount of time he has to spend talking to people. Dean continues to feel a little twitchy, and sometimes he has a hard time using his words. He’s stopped working for Ellen, who told him off when he tried to come back. 

“You told me you were working one other part-time job, Dean,” Ellen says when she finds out how many hours Dean was really working and going to school.

“I was working one other part-time job, with Bobby!” It’s clearly a lie of omission, and Ellen calls him on it right away, her face going pink with frustrated anger.

“You were working another full-time job, too!”

Apparently, she thought he worked too hard, and she won’t let him come back unless his other work hours total under 30 hours a week. Dean rolls his eyes at her, but she insists that he needs to rest and recover.

He and Castiel find a tiny one-bedroom apartment in the Castro to rent. Cas starts his work as an associate professor at SFSU in the fall, and Dean thinks about starting courses to be a paramedic. He’s been looking up courses nearby, and he thinks he’s found the one he’d like to enroll in. Castiel helps hold him together when he wants to fly apart, and on the nights when the nightmares won’t stop, he helps Dean by laying awake with him until he can go back to sleep.

Life is moving forward, and that’s more than Dean thought would happen. He confesses to Cas that he was going to kill himself when he tried to leave that day, and Cas tells him he will never stop feeling grateful that he got home in time to stop Dean from doing anything.

Dean’s just grateful Cas convinced him to stay.


	15. luminosity.

“Cas! Where are my fucking--ow!”

“Are you okay?”

“Fuck!”

“Dean?”

The door to the balcony opens and closes, and Dean hears the skittering sound of dog toenails on the wood floors as their Shiba Inu, Yasha (Dean’s fucking hilarious, no matter what Cas says. _“Inu Yasha means ‘dog demon’, come on, that’s great!”_) comes rocketing around the corner. Yasha sees Dean and freezes like a statue in a bowed position. She’s looking to be chased, but Dean is not in the mood, considering he just stepped on the spiky chewed up dinosaur-shaped nylabone that their demon dog left in the middle of the floor. He’s pretty sure they’re going to have to cut off his foot. Worse than stepping on a Lego, Jesus.

He picks up his foot and leans against the wall to check the bottom of it. It’s not bleeding, but it feels pinched all to hell. Damn dog.

“Dean?” Cas rounds the corner, and raises his eyebrow at the position Dean’s twisted himself into. “You okay?”

“I stepped on Yasha’s stupid bone again.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah.”

“Poor baby. Were you shouting for me?”

Dean scowls at him. Cas can make fun of Dean all he wants for being a baby, but Dean would like to see him step on that bone and not feel the pain. “Asshole. I was looking for my glasses-- thief!” He spots his glasses sitting on top of Cas’ head, and Cas looking abashed. “You took my glasses! Get your own!”

“I have my own!”

“Why are you wearing mine?”

“I couldn’t find mine!”

“Thief.”

“My apologies. Did you need them?”

“Yeah, I was trying to read a thing on my tablet, but glasses would be pretty handy, and I couldn’t find them anywhere, because _someone_ was using them.”

“Yes, well,” Cas takes the glasses off of his head and slides them gently onto Dean’s face. He gives Dean a kiss on the cheek. Dean blushes. Even after two years together, Castiel’s random small reminders that he loves Dean come at a surprise sometimes.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Are you free for dinner tonight?” Dean’s been studying a course for his higher paramedic certification, and has been eyeballs-deep in research on rescue breathing.

“Yeah. I gotta finish this paper, but then I’m all yours.”

“Good, I’m taking you out.”

Dean shoots him a smile, “should I be dressing up for this?”

“Hm. Yes, I think we should. Didn’t you just get that suit back from the tailor?”

“Yeah, the one you spent way too much money on,” Dean flushes, remembering what they got up to when they got back from the suit shop. Cas barely managed to get Dean’s pants down before he was blowing him against the inside of their front door.

“Dean, you needed a suit.”

“I didn’t need a two thousand dollar suit!”

“But it looked so good on you!”

“I’m never going to need to wear a two thousand dollar suit anywhere.”

“Problem solved, you can wear it tonight. And you’ll wear it to Jess and Sam’s wedding.”

“I hate you.”

“You love me.”

Dean smiles. “Yeah, I do. Now go away, I have to finish reading and apparently I have to get all dressed up tonight.”

Dean always felt a little bit uncomfortable when Castiel reminded him that money wasn’t much of a concern for him. He wasn’t a big spender, rarely spent over his modest salary from the university, but every so often he would do something, like buy Dean a two thousand dollar sharkskin weave Zegna suit, and Dean was reminded that his boyfriend had some serious money in his account. Castiel had, at the same time as purchasing Dean’s suit, bought himself a suit that cost almost twice what Dean’s did, from a designer that Dean had never heard of. Something Italian sounding.

Dean finishes his reading, and finds Cas out on the balcony again, wearing his own glasses this time, answering what looks like emails from students with Yasha at his feet. Castiel had wanted a cat, and Dean a dog, so they met in the middle. Besides, Dean is allergic to cats. Yasha is an independent, aloof dog, and she’s usually content to be left alone. Castiel had been very excited when they learned that Shiba Inus were usually considered very “cat-like”, and they tracked down an adoptable bunch nearly the next day.

“Hey. I was gonna get in the shower. Join me?”

Cas gives him an enthusiastic nod, “Go start the water, I’ll join you in a second.”

Dean strips as he walks to the bathroom, setting the water temperature and making sure there are clean towels. He steps under the water, letting it run over his head for a minute, closing his eyes. He and Cas have come a long way from what Dean calls his “fucked up shit” and Cas calls “recovering from trauma.” Dean still has trouble dealing with some of his memories from his kidnapping, and he doesn’t think that’s ever really going to go away. His therapist, Pam, says that the most important thing to remember is that even though he has those memories and they don’t feel good, they don’t incapacitate them the way they used to.

Dean used to wake up screaming from nightmares. He went silent for days at a time, he couldn’t keep food down. He was drinking far too much. Medication helped. Therapy helped. Castiel helped. Dean still privately thinks Castiel is way too good for him, but he’s learned to accept that whether or not that’s true, he’s the one Castiel wants.

The door to the shower opens, and a naked Castiel steps in, looking Dean up and down appreciatively.

“Did you start without me?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, sweetheart.”

Dean lets himself be wrapped up in Castiel’s arms and kissed thoroughly. As Cas deepens the kiss, he pushes Dean backward into the wall, rolling his hips slightly to meet Dean’s where he’s starting to harden.

Dean lets himself be guided, and he doesn’t argue when Cas gets down on his knees and swallows his erection, bobbing his head and using the barest hint of teeth. Dean groans and leans his head back against the wall, closing his eyes.

Castiel pulls off and says, “watch me,” so Dean does. He watches Cas boldly swallow his dick, taking it all the way until his nose nearly touches the hair at the base of his cock. Cas swallows around it, and Dean’s knees nearly go weak. They make eye contact as Cas begins to bob his head, licking around the shaft and sucking kisses into the head. Cas seems to impossibly make Dean’s cock wetter than the shower does, slicker with his spit and the precome that the water doesn’t wash away, and Dean thinks he just might pass out from the feeling.

Cas’ hand moves from where it had been gently rolling his balls, back to press on the space just behind, which makes Dean’s hips jerk slightly. Cas hums around his mouthful, and again, moves his finger slightly farther back to rub against Dean’s hole, pushing slightly.

Dean groans. “God, you’re beautiful, you know that?”

Cas pushes his finger into Dean’s hole. It hurts a very little bit (water is not very good lube, after all), but Dean likes it. He moans again, and says “Cas, I’m gonna come,” but Cas just swallows him down even further and pushes his finger in and out until Dean comes down his throat.

When he can open his eyes again, Dean pulls Castiel up by the shoulders and turns him quickly so that he’s the one with his back to the wall. He can taste himself in Cas’ mouth, and it barely takes thirty seconds before Cas groans and comes.

“Fuck. Who taught you how to suck a cock? I should send them a fruit basket.”

“Oh, I took a course at school, didn’t you?”

“Asshole. I love you.”

“I love you too. And we have reservations in an hour and a half, so we better finish this shower.”

They wash each other’s hair and scrub each other clean with minty soap. They brush their teeth side by side at their single sink. Castiel watches Dean put a small amount of product in his hair while he does the same (though he doesn’t know why he bothers, it always looks a mess), and then grabs his electric razor to shave as Dean pulls his slate blue suit out of the closet, along with a light blue shirt and black tie.

When Castiel is dressed in his deep navy suit and light gray shirt, the two stand side by side in their long mirror.

“Well. I don’t know that I needed a suit that costs more than our rent, but I gotta admit, Cas. We look hot,” he gives a sly look to his boyfriend and leaves the bedroom to take Yasha out on a quick walk before they put her back in her pen while they’re gone. Last time they left her out while she was alone she tore up all of their printer paper. 

Castiel had made reservations at a tiny bistro and wine bar within walking distance, so the two set out, hand in hand.

While they walked around their little neighborhood in the Castro, Dean thought back to what it had been like right after he had decided to really try to get better, for Castiel’s sake. It certainly didn’t happen right away, but Dean and his therapist set small goals for him, and it seemed to be working. 

Lots of small things helped, of course. There were no more fires (though Dean had a hard time believing that it was really true), Sam had moved closer with his fiance, Jessica. Cas was working as an associate professor at the university and was able to teach and work part-time in the university lab. Dean completed his courses for his Emergency Medical Technician certification and was working towards his full-fledged Paramedic certification. It had been three years since the whole disaster, and though Dean sometimes had difficulty when his team was called to a fire, he felt like he was finally making a difference, and helping enough people that he felt like he almost deserved the good life he currently had.

Of course, his therapist would disagree with him. Pamela would tell him that he _always _deserved a good life, that he doesn’t have to constantly earn love and affection, but some habits are easier to break than others. Dean is now able to live for himself, and not just Cas. It’s more than he ever thought he could have.

At the restaurant, Dean and Cas are definitely the most dressed up, but Cas had been right. Instead of feeling slightly ridiculous in his suit, he feels like it’s a special occasion. They look good, and together they are better than ever. He can’t stop smiling, even when Cas orders them pretentious portions of Spanish food (“it’s supposed to be small, Dean, it’s tapas,”) and forces Dean to try foods that he ordinarily would’ve balked at.

Dinner is wonderful. Castiel is amazing. Dean wants to spend the rest of his life with this man.

Holy hell, Dean wants to marry Castiel Novak.

“Dean? Is everything okay?”

“We should get married.”

“What?”

‘We should get married. Cas, I love you. I want to spend forever with you. I want to spoil our dog, and then spoil a kid or two. I want to wake up with you every day, and I want to go to sleep with you every night. You saved my life more than once, and you never ask for anything in return. You brought stability and warmth into my life when I thought I was fine with being alone, and you gave me a reason to recover when I thought it was over,” Dean feels his throat tighten with emotion, and decides to wrap it up, but there’s so much he could say. “You’re the best, most unselfish person I’ve ever met, and I love you. I love you so much.”

There’s a stunned silence. Cas looks shocked, and then happy, and then annoyed.

“Cas?”

“Are you serious?”

“What? Of course-- I mean. It’s okay if you don’t want to marry me, I just--”

“You ruined my proposal!”

Dean wasn’t exactly expecting this response. “I--what?”

“I was going to propose to you, you idiot!” 

“You were going to ask--!”

“Of course I was! I have a ring! You ruined my proposal, Dean Winchester, I don’t even want to marry you now.”

“You have a ring?”

“Yes, but I’m not going to give it to you now.”

Dean grins. This man.

“Can I see it?”

Cas huffs and makes an annoyed face, but Dean can tell that he’s secretly thrilled. Dean’s thrilled, but it’s not a secret.

Cas pulls a box out of his pocket and holds it in his hand. “I’ve been carrying it around for days, I was worried you’d find it. I have a complaint, though.”

“Huh?”

“You said all those wonderful things about me, and you never let me tell you all the reasons I love you.”

“Cas…”

“Shh. Let me. I love you. So much. I don’t think I was doing anything except doing what I thought I was supposed to be doing before I met you. I went to school, I studied, I ate, I slept. I didn’t do anything. And then you showed up, and suddenly I had things to do besides think about school. I had a friend. And then friends, plural. You’re like, like a bright, shining light that everyone but you can see. You changed everything for me, and I wouldn’t take back a second of my time with you.”

Dean’s face feels like it’s glowing, but he can’t help deflecting Cas’ comments with a little bit of humor. “Even when I’m a miserable bastard to you?”

“Even then,” Cas knowingly smiles gently at Dean across the small table.

“Cas. I don’t deserve you.”

“Dean, when are you going to realize that you deserve so much more than me?”

Dean laughs, suddenly feeling filled with excitement. “So wait. We’re getting married?”

“We’re getting married.”

“Can I see my ring now?”

Cas opens the box and hands it over to Dean, who pulls it out and examines it. It’s a dark gray band, matte with what looks like tiny brush strokes all over it. The inside is a dark wood, and there’s a tiny “C & D” engraved on the inside. Dean looks up at Cas, who has a huge smile on his face.

“The wood inside is from an oak whiskey barrel, and the outside is meteorite.”

Dean stares at him, and then back at the ring. “It’s. Wow. Meteorite? And a whiskey barrel?”

“It made me think of you. You love looking at the night sky, and well…”

“I love whiskey.”

“Exactly.”

“I love you. Will you…?” Dean hands the ring to Cas, who slides it on Dean’s finger. Cas had to have stolen one of his other rings to get the size, because it fits perfectly. “Cas, I. I don’t have a ring for you yet.”

“That’s okay.”

“Cas, did you get me all dressed up to propose to me?”

“Maybe.”

“You sap.”

“You love me.”

“Yeah,” Dean grins from ear to ear, “I really do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I think my "Shiba inu yasha" joke is HILARIOUS and I will hear nothing that says otherwise  
2\. I gave them a shiba inu because OBVIOUSLY Cas likes cats and Dean is allergic, so they had to get a dog that's basically a cat, DUH.  
3\. I'm peppermiints-please on tumblr, come say hello! I also sporadically update a tumblr where I rec fics I've read, collectallthefanfiction.  
4\. Thanks for reading!


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